


Who We Are (and What We Mean to Each Other)

by Infinite_Finals_Week



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: But also, Communication, Crying, Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Lack of Communication, Major Character Death Because They Die a Lot, Team as Family, timeline jumping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-02-24 00:34:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 21
Words: 22,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23167363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Infinite_Finals_Week/pseuds/Infinite_Finals_Week
Summary: What does it mean to be a team?More importantly, what does it mean to be a family?The inhabitants of the Starblaster figure that it's a lot of different things.Part of it is being there.Part of it is being missed when you're not.
Relationships: Barry Bluejeans & Magnus Burnsides & Davenport & Merle Highchurch & Lucretia & Lup & Taako, Barry Bluejeans/Lup, Davenport/Merle Highchurch
Comments: 59
Kudos: 92





	1. For What Good Is a Captain Without His Crew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Davenport likes to think that he grew out of having nightmares. He's wrong.

Magnus knows he should be in bed right now. But it's his birthday, and the others made him stay in bed until noon, so he's not tired.  It's one of those rare runs where they find the Light of Creation early and everything is mostly fine for the rest of the year.  They'd mapped out the world, and Davenport was talking about splitting up to search faster when the light had practically come crashing down on top of them. It took them less than a week of searching to find.

Magnus likes it here. He likes the stars here.  They're not like the ones back home, which remain stationary, forming the same pictures over and over again each year.  The _Starblaster_ has an observation deck, and as they fly almost lazily through the sky, Magnus watches these stars, which are a wide variety of pinks and blues and greens, as they swirl, forming artwork that's there only for a short amount of time, artwork that Magnus knows he'll be the only one to ever see. The stars here blink, too,  just quick ons and offs like there's a great big lightboard in the sky, and he can't see the person controlling it but he can feel the sense of order it creates, the sense of security. Like there's a plan for how the world is supposed to go, and in it, everything is going to turn out just fine.

He hears footsteps behind him and turns, expecting to see Barry, who in the excitement of a project hasn't realised how late it is, or Lucretia, up for another cup of coffee so that she can continue to journal, recording their journey late into the night.  Instead, it's Davenport, stopped frozen in the doorway and staring into and through Magnus. Davenport isn't slight.  He's built sturdily and is actually rather tall, but he's a gnome nonetheless, predisposed to being small and long-limbed.  Magnus can see him shaking like a leaf in the wind, but it's only when he brings a hand up to his face to scrub at his eyes that Magnus realises that Davenport is _crying_.

"Dav, what- are you okay?" Magnus asks. That's always the important first question. Davenport gives a few jerky nods, eyes glued now to the smooth floor. "What do you want me to do?"  Even in the dim light, he can tell that Davenport's face is flushed bright red, that it's taking everything he has in him not to make noise and wake the others up. He opens his mouth, and all that comes out is a sort of whine from the very back of his throat.  Magnus moves forward until he's close enough to put a tentative hand on Davenport's shoulder. He's done it before, having known each other for what is now nearly seventy years. But it's different when he's vulnerable.

This isn't Magnus's first time comforting a crying crewmate.  Usually, it's Barry, who, like the rest of them, is far more desensitised to death than the average person, but who is also anxious enough to be worried that any cycle might be their last, to be so, _so_ worried about all of them.  Magnus thinks back to the last cycle, where Taako had a _Disintegrate_ spell thrown back at him, and Barry had been concerned about how the last thing he might have said to him was that he was a whiny brat (it had been a joke, Barry had said, lying, exhausted, on top of Magnus on the observation deck, even if Taako was being a whiny brat).

He doesn't know why, but it had never been Davenport.  Maybe it was because Davenport is the one who tries to keep it together for the rest of them, even in cycles where he couldn't possibly do it.  Davenport was their friend, but when it came to the important things, the things that they needed to get done now, it always came to Davenport to be stoic and responsible, to be their Captain, to be their guiding force and their sense of urgency even on the days when the world seemed its bleakest.

Magnus realises that part of the reason Davenport isn't making any noise is because he's only breathing intermittently. He'll take a short, shallow breath in, and then hold it for as long as he possibly can. "Hey, hey, Dav, I know it's hard right now buddy, but you have to breathe." Magnus takes his wrists gently, leading him to a chair that sits in the centre of the room. Davenport whimpers, looking anywhere but at Magnus and swallowing hard. Magnus notices too late that the chair in front of him is distinctly human-sized, and he picks Davenport up into a sort of bridal carry, fully intending to set him down again immediately, when Davenport leans into him, wrapping shaking fists into Magnus's shirt.

Magnus shifts to pull Davenport closer, and he sobs into Magnus's chest. They stay like that for a while, just the two of them. When Davenport has calmed down enough that his breaths no longer come out shaking and heavy, he gestures to be put down. Magnus sets him tenderly on the ground, and Davenport spends a good thirty seconds wiping his face of tears and snot. " _Oh god,_ " He says, giving a little hiccuping laugh. Magnus's hands have moved again to his shoulders, and Davenport sighs. "Sorry. Sorry. This is, ah, not exactly how I planned to spend the night." He takes a step back. "Don't tell the others about this, okay? I'm your captain, it's important that I don't do- _this._ "

"Of course,"

Davenport turns to walk back to his quarters. "I'll see you in the morning, Magnus. Thank y-,"

"Wait!" Magnus says, too loudly, and Davenport flinches. "What- what happened? I mean, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to, I wouldn't- but if it happens again, I want to know how to help."

There's a moment of tense silence between them. Davenport sighs, long and loud. "You know how a couple of years back we were killed by the weird courtroom-whatever-thing? And how we left Lucretia alone?" Magnus nods. "I keep having dreams where that happens to me - technically, it's even more likely for me seeing as I'm our captain and navigator - and I'm all alone. All I can do is run, and run, and even when I try to hide nothing works for long. And it's weird. Because I was alone until this mission, though I guess this mission has really been, well, my entire life. I was raised within the IPRE, taught to be independent and to achieve what was necessary and then come back. But I've lived a good deal - died some, too - and over the past sixty-eight years, I've come to realise that it's not possible to do everything by myself. I certainly couldn't do this mission by myself. I need you, and Merle, Barry, Lucretia, the twins- if we weren't all together, we wouldn't be able to do this. I can't imagine having to do this alone. It just wouldn't be possible. I'm no good as a captain without my crew. If I lost you, that would be it, everything would be over. The fate of the universe rests on us, and I'm in charge of us, and so the fate of the universe rests on me."

"Listen, Dav. I can't argue the fact that every one of us has been essential to any continued successes we're having. If even one of us hadn't been here at the beginning of the mission, we would all be dead by now, hands down. We all have to worry - that's just the way it is when you're fighting something that exists outside of like, reality - but not as much as I think you are. You're more competent by yourself than I think any of us, including you, give you credit for. You're our captain, but you're also a fantastic wizard. If anyone has the right to be the captain of the team that fights for the universe, it's you. And I, for one, couldn't think of a better man for the job."

"I- thank you, Magnus."

"Anytime, Captain Davenport."

Davenport returns to his quarters, and Magnus returns to the stars.


	2. Not Surprising, but Still Not Pleasant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first time Barry dies, he's scared.

Barry stares at the place where his fingers used to be. Merle's magic is great, sure, but he can't regrow body parts, and he's been stuck for a couple weeks without most of the fingers on his right hand on account of what amounts to nothing more than a stupid accident. He can't stand the thought of another five months of not being able to write and sighs before being jolted back into reality by Taako's hand on his shoulder. "Hey, you okay?" He asks. "We can head back if you need. I can take Lup, or, uh, I don't know. Magnus, maybe?"

The two of them stand in front of the entrance to a crumbling structure, an Indiana Jones-esque jungle temple. Barry isn't entirely sure what that thought means, or what Indiana Jones is, but it feels right. The seven of them split up to look for the Light, the same way they have for the past two years. Davenport stays at the ship, as the only one who has any idea of how to drive it, and the other six of them split into groups of two. But where usually Taako and Lup go searching together, their argument last planar system seems to have given them want to split up. Barry likes Lup, but she had opted to go with Lucretia, and Merle and Magnus took to each other, so that left him with just Taako. He doesn't dislike Taako. But it's been nearly three years now, and it's almost strange how little time the two of them have spent alone together. Being by himself with Taako makes it feel like something is off.

He flexes the one-and-a-half fingers he still has left. "It's a little hindering for some of the somatic gestures I might need to do, but I'll be fine." Barry says, stepping towards the temple.

"No, dude, I mean like, _mentally_ , are you okay? You've just been real quiet, and I don't know- is that normal? Is this a normal thing and I'm overreacting?" Taako says, and Barry winces. He's been trying to avoid real conversations with Taako, and for that matter, Lup, for reasons he doesn't want to put a name to now but might have to do with the way Taako's eyes are dotted with flecks of gold, or the way that Lup's smile looks in the dying evening light when the sky changes from a deep magenta into a lavender and orange, or the fact that both of them are very, very pretty.

"I'm fine!" Barry says, too loudly, like he's trying to convince himself of it more than anything else.

"Alright then my dude, if you say so I guess." Taako says, and he strides up to the entrance. "Listen though, I think it's best if one of us goes in and maybe, maybe, the other one of us stays out here to keep watch. And I'll be good out here. So-,"

"No, actually, that sounds _more_ dangerous. We really should stick together, and if one of us was to die in there the other person would need to report that loss back to the ship, and-,"

"O-kay, Jesus, Bluejeans," Taako says, and then he gestures to the door. "After you, though. As your resident wizard and not some kind of multiclassing sorcerer, I have skinny arms." 

"Alright, alright." Barry taps his other hand and casts _Light,_ stepping through the stone archway. The room is empty, or at least it appears to be at first glance. "Can you cast _Find_ _Traps_ or- no, that's not a wizard spell, is it?" He asks, turning to Taako, but Taako isn't there anymore, and neither is the exit out of the temple. Instead he's faced with a smooth wall, the same eggshell colour as the _Starblaster_ kitchen. He swivels back around again at the sound of a voice.

" ** _Ssssssss_** ," Hisses a figure made of light, and Barry squints. He feels compelled to tell the truth, to give in to the demands that this creature makes, and he's only given half a second to resist against the pull of magic before it tugs him into the familiar feeling of an enchantment. " ** _Sssss_**." It demands, and Barry would _love to comply,_ Barry has never known a feeling such as the one he will when he completes _whatever is asked of him so, so gladly._ The problem, he realises, is that he has no idea what he's being asked to do. 

Panic coils in his stomach. "I don't know- what do you want, what- I will, just, just, just- what do you _need?_ " He'll do it, he just needs to know what _it_ is. 

" ** _Ssssssssssss_**." The thing hisses angrily. Bright beams of lightning fly from its body, and as they collide with Barry he snaps back into his right mind. Pain courses through him, and he falls to the ground, every muscle in his body tensed, but he clings to dear life.

" ** _Harm_**." He spits roughly, his head spinning as he throws out a hand toward the creature. It shrieks, and lets out another long hiss. His robes catch fire as lightning cracks off his body, skin blackening agonisingly until it's like a switch flips in his brain and he doesn't feel anything anymore. 

He's dying. He's _dying_ , oh gods, what is he going to do- spots dance in his vision, and he resubmerges for just long enough to throw out another spell, _Blight_ , and the light inside the thing flickers and dims, but not enough to stop it from casting _Lightning Bolt_ at him again, and this time when he goes under he doesn't come back up.

Then he's standing on the deck of the _Starblaster_ , the same place he's always standing when they come back after a year, and just how _okay_ he feels leaves a deep sense of unease in his stomach. Lup crows as the world around them shifts and they work their way into the next planar system, the gelatinous universe leaving a taste in his mouth like salmon and strawberry pie. It's not a great combination. 

"Bluejeans!" Taako crows from twenty feet behind him. "Thank the _fucking_ gods- you're okay! You're okay, right?"

"I-," Barry begins, and his voice chokes out. "I don't even- I don't-," 

"Hey, dude, you good? You need, like, a drink or some shit?" Taako asks. 

Barry leans against the wall, a hand pressed to his forehead as he slowly slides to the ground.

"Bluejeans, buddy, how you doin'?" Merle asks, walking over and giving Barry a solid pat on the back. 

Barry can't _breathe._ He died, he died, and then he was just _back._ He died, he died, he died, he died- his head is killing him, and that's all that repeats in his head, over and over again. He died, he died, he died- Barry's breath catches, again and again, and he feels like he's stuck, stuck, stuck, in a loop, over and over again.

Taako crouches down next to him, and takes one of his hands. "Barry, look at me. Breathe." Taako's face shifts and blurs before coming into focus and Barry's eyes burn. "Breathe." His tone isn't harsh, but it isn't gentle either, it's just a command. Barry blinks furiously, and there's a comforting quiet that blankets the room. "Everything's going to be okay." 


	3. Poison Is Not Good For Your Health

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A plant does a hit on Magnus.

The world they've landed on is so lush with plant life that Magnus can't see five feet in front of him. He's been through fourteen years of this (and he'll often remark on the fact that he is now thirty-seven and does not need to be looked after, thank-you-very-much), and in all fourteen of them he's never seen so many shades of green, and he's only human. 

It wasn't hard to find a plant they could eat, and they're up to having found several forms of edible greenery, though they have lost Lucretia for the first time after she turned out to be allergic to one of them, so the six of them have been trying to keep up note-taking for her. They're terrible at it, but Magnus figures that it's the thought that counts. The downside to this is that the Light fell fairly close to the ship, and they still have to walk the ground if they want to have any chance at all of finding it.

Merle's going with him, and so far they have made very little progress. Having to cut through all of the flora is making the two of them so slow that in the half-hour they've been travelling, Magnus feels like they would be lucky if they had made it half a mile. It certainly doesn't help that Merle objects to the slaughter of so many innocent plants and keeps trying to 'gently guide them into death' as Magnus continues to trek forward, trying to ignore the _considerably_ lower tone Merle uses while talking to the scenery.

They come across an especially thick section of brush, long thick stalks that shoot upwards far into the sky and are as wide around as Magnus's arms. His sword doesn't do especially well, each stalk taking several swings to cut though, and they're too closely grown together for either of them to work their way through.

"Dammit!" Magnus says, when he's been working on one especially tough stalk for a good two minutes, burying the point of his sword in the ground. "Merle, I know you don't want to kill them, but can you, I don't know, _move_ them, or something?"

Merle starts digging through the pockets of his robe, pulling out various papers and Pan-phlets until he comes across one that he seems to like. "Well, it's not what I tend to do, but here we go. **_Insect Plague_**." 

Biting locusts fill the air in front of them.

"Merle?" Magnus asks.

"Yes?"

"What the _fuuuuck_?"

"Well, they're insects! Insects eat plants! So they should eat the plants!" Merle looks up at him as though this is perfectly sound logic.

They hear faint laughter on the breeze, as though the very universe is amused by Merle's choice of spell. Then, like the flip of a switch, it works, and the locusts begin to attack the stalks, tearing through them and cleaving a clean path through to a seemingly clear area - or as clear as it gets this cycle.

The two of them move onward, and as they step into the clearing the ground turns into an ashen grey and the wind kicks up, making the plant life around them swing wildly back and forth. There's around five feet of that grey mud, and then the ground starts to burst with bright red vines, paper-thin and razor-sharp, which continues for around 20 feet, and beyond that is another circle of those thick stalks. It looks like hell to get through, but sure enough, there in the centre of it all is the Light of Creation. 

"I'll go in and get it." Magnus says, taking cautious steps forward while trying to move the vines out of the way with his sword while also moving fast enough to get through the grey mud, which is strangely warm and only getting hotter. He makes it all the way to the stalks, taking the few swings it takes to cut through them, and then stepping forward to the Light of Creation.

One of his ankles, caught in a stray vine, holds him back and he falls to his knees, the vines slicing through the fabric covering his calves and into his skin. "Shit," He mummers as his head begins to fill with cotton fuzz. He picks up the Light and tries to get up, more vines slicing through his palms. "Shit," He says again, and he drops the Light. 

"Hey, Magnus, you alright there buddy?" Merle asks, but he sounds distant, like he's calling to Magnus from 100 miles away. "Magnus? Magnus!" Merle's voice fades into the distance, and the world seems to shift a little too far to the right. 

"'m fine." Magnus says. "Jus' tired." Then he decides that the best course of action is to take a nap, not noticing when the mud stars to burn his skin or when the gentle embrace of divine energy wraps around him.

Merle is not known to rush, but as he pulls a bright and glowing Magnus, still clutching the Light of Creation to his chest, out of the vines, he runs as best he can back to the ship. He doesn't know what spell he's using to hold Magnus - he's a big boy, far too heavy for most of the spells Merle can usually cast could hold. It's more of a simple _need_ as he calls on Pan and it's just there. 

He casts _Lesser Restoration_ , but there's still bright red poison burning through Magnus's body, making his veins stand out starkly against his skin. Merle grabs his communicator from his bag, leaning Magnus against a plant that vaguely resembles a tree. "'Scuse me, Cap'n'port?" He says, trying to keep up a generally unconcerned tone and not doing a great job at it. "I need you to bring the Starblaster over - Maggie isn't doing-," He glances over at his fighter companion, who currently looks like he is being possessed by a hellbeast. "Great. I'll cast up _Daylight,_ " He says, and shouts the incantation.

Expending another spell slot to make the 60-foot ball of light a nice lavender, he tries to tend to Magnus as best he can. Life is draining from his body alarmingly fast, and he casts _Regenerate,_ hoping he won't have to cast too many more spells to keep Magnus alive before Davenport arrives. He burns through two more slots on _Heal_ and _Life_ _Transference_. 

When Davenport does show up, he has Taako on board with him, and their resident flip wizard is able to _Levitate_ Magnus into the infirmary with an "Aw, Maggie, shit,"

Merle grabs a jar of fine powder, whispers a few words to Pan, and casts _Greater Restoration._

When Magnus wakes up several hours later, it's dark outside, no light shining through the lone infirmary window. Merle sits in a chair by the door, though it's more of a slump as he is very clearly asleep. 

"Merle?" Magnus says, gently shaking him. Merle doesn't open his eyes, but he makes a noise to show that he's listening. "Did we get it?"

"Yeah we did, bud. You did great." 

"Thanks," Magnus says, and then the two of them fall back asleep.


	4. Being Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taako is gone, and Lup can't help but feel that it's her fault.

Davenport has to give it to her, she's good at hiding when she really wants to, but he's lived with her for over eighty years now, and there's no way she could have hidden forever. When he finds her, she's lying facing the wall in the room of an inn she rented three weeks ago and refuses to leave. They've promised to give him compensation for getting her out of there, which is a nice bonus to what he came here to do in the first place.

He closes the wooden door behind him. "Lup," He begins.

"Go away." Lup says, throwing a pillow which lands harmlessly at his feet. 

"Lup, listen-,"

"I said _go away_. I don' wanna see any'a you fuckers." She sounds angry, but the overboiled angry that means she's worked through setting things on fire already and isn't quite sure what to do with herself now.

"Lup, Barry told me why you think it might be, but it's not your fault. It's not at _all_ your fault."

"Yes it is!" Lup screams, jolting upright. Her skin is faintly glowing with arcane energy, a threat that Davenport knows she'll make good on. He doesn't step back. "I shoulda gone! I shoulda gone with them, they'd still be here!" 

Losing Magnus and Taako, especially so early in the year, had been a hit. They'd gone out to ask around about the Light, which they hadn't even seen fall this cycle, and had been shot in a day. The city guards, who they'd made themselves known to, had recognised their uniforms and returned their bodies to the _Starblaster._ Lup had been gone before this world's pale green sun had left the sky.

"Come back to the ship. Please. Nobody-,"

" ** _No way out_**." Lup says.

He's standing at the entrance to a massive maze, inky obsidian walls ten feet high and as thick as he is tall. He sighs, making his way through until, ten minutes later, he's back in the room. Lup is lying down facing the wall again. "You're lucky I can't think of any more banishing spells." She says, her voice strained.

"Nobody on the ship blames you. There's no way you could have known what was going to happen. It's not your fault, Lup. If it's anyone's fault, it's mine for sending them out there." 

"They 'sked me to go with them, and I di'n'. I wan'ed to stay with _Barry_ on the ship, I wan'ed to stay with Barry, if I ha'n' I coulda saved 'em!" Lup's face is drenched in tears and snot from the time Davenport was gone, and as she stands from her bed she makes it evident how much of a mess she really is.

Lup is a strong advocate for clothes that are both cute and comfortable, or, as Magnus had said, "cufortable" (it was not his best work). Her wardrobe consisted mostly of airy but well-fitting tunics, faded jeans, and decal t-shirts. That had apparently been thrown to the wayside in favour of a more hasty exit, as all she has on now are the thin IPRE-issued undergarments usually worn with her robes, which have been balled in the corner of the room. Her hair is greasy and knotted, more frizzy than wavy, and she looks _tired_ _._ Just _tired._

"'m a lich now. Even if I ha' die' too, 'f I couldn'ta protec'ed them, I coulda killed whoever did it-I would'a killed 'em, I woulda-," She's shaking and sobbing, eyes red. "I wou'a- 's- I can'-," She slides to the ground, head in her hands as her words dissolve into incomprehensibility. 

Davenport walks over and sits down next to her, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Rabbit, I know it's hard- every time I send groups of you out and one of you dies there's a part of me that tells me that it's my fault. But listen. Nobody but you thinks that. Do you think Taako and Magnus are going to blame you?"

"No," Lup says, and she's still crying, but she's quieted down enough to talk again. You know that dumbass dance Taako does?" She asks, and Davenport laughs.

"I've seen Taako do many dumbass dances, but I think I know the one you're talking about."

"I'm making him do that as soon as he gets back. I'm telling you so that you can remind me." She sniffles, wiping her nose on her arm.

"I won't forget." Davenport says. Lup has partially shifted her weight from the bed to Davenport, and he's being a little crushed, but he doesn't particularly mind. Lup is his crew. Lup is his family. "We're parked a little outside town. Whenever you want to go, we can, but I'm not leaving you here. We're down two of our biggest hitters, I need my evocation wizard."

Lup smiles. "Whenever you need something blown up, Captain."


	5. Cooking Lesson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The culinary artist teaches the journal keeper about his art.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did a lot of dice rolls for this one, and as a result there are a few moments where it seems like Lucretia is doing better than Taako is at cooking. That's because even with the +5 modifier to his 'baking' skill that I gave him, Taako rolled very poorly across the board while Lucretia rolled very well despite her -1.

Taako is sprawled across most of the couch, an arcane tome in his hands as he reads the same paragraph over and over again. 

_"Now consider the two-path apparatus of figure 1.4. When evocation energy enters, arcane energy will always come out with some power of evocation. It turns out to be possible to build a total-of-nothing apparatus, in which when evocation energy is run through, will cause the resulting arcane energy to instead be abjuration energy, because abjuration energy is of an opposite charge of evocation energy. But total-of-nothing apparatuses, by definition, do not change the properties of the arcane energy, so the abjuration energy is still, fundamentally, evocation energy simply functioning as abjuration energy."_

It makes no sense. Normally he likes the conversational tone of this particular book, but there are days such as today when it only serves to bog down the text, making it impossible to read. By all means, he should be able to make it through this, but his brain just doesn't want to today, and so it's begun to go on strike, no matter how much Taako would really like to make it to that 15th level and achieve an eighth level spell slot. Lup levelled up two weeks ago and she's been throwing around _Telepathy_ and _Demiplane._ He'd made a joke about being glad to be rid of her while she was in her demiplane (which she had named "The Sick Cool Lup Zone Where None of Y'all Can Fuck 'Round In"), and he wasn't _jealous_ , per say - never, not Taako - but he was _inspired_ by her progress. 

Lucretia walks in, looks around and sits down in a chair across from him. She pulls a journal from her satchel and starts to write in it, and the scratching of her quill on paper as she records whatever experience she just had. When she finishes she just continues to sit in the chair, looking _very_ uncomfortable. Taako knows it shouldn't be distracting, her just sitting there, but it _is_. 

He tries to return his book, flipping the page despite not being done with that one. He figures that at a certain point it's best to just give up and try again another day. " _So_ _the fact of the matter is this: arcane energy passing through an_ _apparatus, in so far as we are able to fathom the matter, are both channelling arcane energy and not channelling arcane energy, and because those are all of the logical possibilities, the trouble is we have no idea how to entertain the arcanist."_

What???? He doesn't know. He has no clue, and he's not sure if knowing is worth it at this point. He sighs.

"Hey, Luce. What's up?" He asks. 

"I- I, uh, was wondering if you could teach me how to cook?" She looks like she regrets saying anything as soon as the words are out of her mouth. 

Taako grins, snapping his book closed and throwing it across the room with far more flair than is strictly necessary. "Hell yeah! What do you know already?"

"Well, nothing, really?" She says, getting up to get Taako's book from where it had fallen after hitting one of the windows. 

"Just leave it." He tells her. "And that's chill, because it means you ain't got any shit training we'd have to fix. We can make something easy. Listen, listen, the first rule of cooking is that it doesn't have to be hard in order to be good."

Lucretia laughs, picking up another of her journals.

"You had _better_ make a note of that. Luce, name a food that's good. Don't think about it."

"Macarons." 

"There's a science to macarons, they're not- name another food."

"Macaroons." She deadpans. 

"Godsdamn, Luce," He rolls his eyes at her, but he's smiling.

"You could have predicted that one. And I like macarons. They're my favourite."

"I'm not teaching you to make macarons anyway. I have macaron- macaron secrets that I keep from Lup. I can't have you betray my macaron secrets to my fool sister."

"You said just last week that-," She stops journaling for a minute to flip back through and clears her throat. "'Lup and I don't keep secrets from each other. That goes against twin code', and then the two of you chanted 'twin code' for five minutes until Magnus joined in and Lup tried to hit him with a throw pillow."

"Listen though, and say it with me now. _Macaron secrets._ Say it." He stands and straightens himself to his full wizarding height, adjusting his hat.

"Macaron secrets?" 

"Not like a question. It's a statement. Macaron secrets."

"Macaron secrets." Lucretia says at the same time Taako says "It's like a spell."

He starts to walk to the kitchen. "Come on. We'll make- something. I don't know what we have. We're pretty well stocked right now." Lucretia follows him, scribbling furiously in her journal. " _Macaron -_ _secrets,_ " She says under her breath.

As soon as the two of them get into the kitchen, Taako washes his hands and starts rifling through the cupboards, and it's immediately obvious he's in his element. "Get out the white sugar and the brown- the darker brown, we have two." he says. "We're making cookies,"

"Where are they?" She asks, looking down at Taako, who is practically inside the counter now. He points behind him.

"We're gonna need three cups of both of those," He says, pulling a truly ridiculous number of measuring cups out of the cupboards and onto the counter.

"So 1 1/2 cups of both of them or six cups because-,"

"Six cups. There's a fuckton of people on this ship, and Magnus and Lup together will eat like forty cookies." He shifts around the kitchen like the wind, pulling out dishes and ingredients, and he slides over a gigantic bag of cake flour. "We used all of our pastry flour last week, but this is gonna be way better than bread flour and Lup refuses to get all-purpose. We'll need nine cups of that." 

"How many are we actually making?" Lucretia asks, pouring flour with one hand and writing with the other.

"Technically? One hundred and forty-four. But one-fifty. Normally they're best if you freeze the batter for a couple days before you cook them, but we can't _wait_ that long, that's shit." He grins. "You chill with mixing the dough with your hands? I can do it if you're not." He preheats the oven and put the butter on top of it. "It'll soften but it won't melt," He tells her when she looks at him strangely.

"I can mix it with my hands." She says, shoving her journal aside. 

"Sick, dude. Mix those two sugars together, and then when the butter is soft start adding it in chunks." He snatches the flour from under her nose. "You like chewy cookies?" He asks.

"Yeah?" 

"Hell yeah," He says, adding both baking powder and baking soda. "Add another- let's say, 1/2 a cup of white sugar to that. Just-," He laughs. "Don't tell Lup." He continues distractedly to add baking powder. 

"Taako-,"  
" _Shit,_ " he intones. "Okay. I'm gonna let you in on a fun baking secret." He grabs a cup out of a cupboard near his head. "It's called 'so long as you do a decent job at covering up your fuckups nobody will even have to know'." He scoops out most of the pile and does his best to fix it before walking back to Lucretia. She's started adding the chunks of butter and she looks over at him. 

"Is that good?" She asks. He wraps his arms around her shoulders, and she pats his hands with one of hers, even though they're covered in sugar and butter. 

"Yeah, you're doing great." He says. She adds the eggs and the dry ingredients, and lets Taako add the chocolate chips when it's time. He screeches about it while he's doing it and spills half of them on the counter, so they have to add an amalgamation of other kinds of chips, and by the time the cookies are in the oven both of them are tired.

"Whaddaya think?" Taako asks.

"You're worse at this than I thought you were." Lucretia jokes.

" _Today-_ ," Taako protests. " _Today_ was an off day. I'll be back on top of the game tomorrow."

"Sure you will." She says, and he pushes her. She kisses him gently on the cheek. "It was fun."

Lucretia gets a nat 20 on her "hell yes cookies" roll and they're the best thing either of them have ever eaten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Taako wakes up in the middle of the night over sixty years later and calls her to make sure she hasn't revealed his macaron secrets, and that is a FACT


	6. A Matter of Questioning Certainty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During the bad years, they all think too much.

The _Starblaster_ is oddly silent, these days. Sometimes it is easy to pretend that Merle is not gone, has not been gone within two weeks of the start of the last six cycles, but this world is not one of them. They will never say it, but in years when there is scarcely any food to go around, it is almost easier when they don't have to worry about having seven people to feed. There's only the four of them left - Barry, Davenport, Lucretia, and Magnus - Taako and Lup went out looking for supplies, and they haven't seen hide nor hair of the twins since. Davenport and Lucretia are out on that same mission, leaving just Barry and Magnus left on the ship.

Barry sits in his lab, which has been partially turned into a greenhouse in Merle's absence, as it's easier for him to remember to water his plants when they're right next to the other things he knows he has to do. The absence of the twins is worrying him, especially since by this point they're both extremely powerful wizards. Whatever attacked them hasn't come across the rest of the crew yet, and just that fear of the unknown makes him anxious about the possible fates of Davenport and Lucretia. He's seen his family torn to sheds, obliterated in seconds, but it's always worse not knowing what happened to them. Not knowing whether there was something he could have done.

Magic in this world does not flow freely. It taxes his soul, and he remembers yesterday when he'd cast _Demiplane_ to go and retrieve some notes from his space and how he had been temporarily knocked out of commission just by how much arcane energy he'd conjured up. It frightened Magnus half to death, and not without warrant. All of them were terrified of spending a year alone. They told Lucretia she wouldn't have to do another, not ever, that they wouldn't let her, that they would fight harder than anything else to prevent that, but it was an empty promise. They couldn't promise that Lucretia wouldn't be left alone just like they couldn't promise that any of the others would be left alone. 

He imagines Magnus alone, him dead out of magical exhaustion and the others of who-knows what. Magnus, the second-youngest member of the crew even if by this point all three of their humans would have been so close to dying of old age. Magnus, bright and fiery even though the years have started to take their toll on him as they have everyone. Magnus, cheerful and amicable even in the dreariest of situations.

Magnus, alone on the _Starblaster_ , sitting in the silence of this world and flipping through one of Lucretia's journals, counting the days until he will be reunited with his family, and then- even after over half a century, the thought comes, as it always does- _what if it doesn't reset this time?_

Barry's hands are shaking. He's never cried quietly. He's tried to teach himself, but trying to keep everything in only makes it worse in the end, and he _knows_ that, but it doesn't stop his addled brain from trying. 

Magnus, who jokes about how having to much time to himself to think is bad for him even though all of them know it is not a joke. Magnus, who depends on them so that he can have someone to fight for, someone to protect even when the world is crumbling. Magnus, who smiled and laughed so easily at the beginning of their journey, with his sad eyes that have seen too much for someone who still only looks twenty-four.

What if the hunger never comes, it doesn't reset, and Luce and Dav never come back, and it's just Barry and his brother, Barry and his brother until they realise that their food will not last them forever. Barry and his brother until there's only one of them left- because Barry has died of starvation or because they decided that it's better for one of them to die, and there is no way in hell that Barry would ever let Magnus do that to himself. 

Barry's screaming, but he can't hear himself doing it. His head is against his chest, arms curled over his head as he imagines himself, alone on the _Starblaster_. Alone on the _Starblaster_ , and it doesn't reset this time. Alone on the _Starblaster_ until even he runs out of food. Barry has starved to death before, trapped and alone in a dungeon over fifteen years ago. The scenario he imagines for himself is so much worse, because there is no hope. There is no hope. His family is gone, they cannot come and save him. There is no reason left to keep going, no Light, _nothing_ left. 

Magnus is in the doorway, and then Barry is in the doorway too because Magnus has reached in and drawn him up into his arms. Barry is bawling, talking indecipherably, about what he doesn't know. He's breathing, great deep breaths that shake him to his very core and his arms move to wrap around himself now, hands balling in the sides of his shirt. Magnus puts his head on Barry's shoulder and runs fingers through his hair, tells him he's okay. 

Magnus guides him gently to a couch and brings him overcooked pasta and tells him he's okay.

Lucretia and Davenport return later that evening, and in the end they do all reset, and Barry looks at his family and he knows he's okay.


	7. Interpersonal Negotiation Is Incredibly Simple (Just Shoot Fire at It)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The twins work their magic.

The locals of this plane immediately recognise the twins as elves, which says that they have them, but the two of them haven't seen any since they landed, which is suspicious.

The Light hasn't fallen yet, which means they're supposed to be gathering intel, making alliances with this world's people. Lup and Taako walk along a dirt path through a dusty village and Taako wonders why they even bother. Something's up with this plane's magic. He and Lup are ten times more powerful than they should be, but yesterday Davenport was having trouble preparing a _Mislead_. He tries not to let it show when he's frustrated about something, but they've lived with each other for almost a full century now.

Lup gives a solid knock on the door into the most official-looking building in town, which is still not very official-looking, and they both do their best to look presentable, but they're both really just tired. Ninety-six years, and they try to keep hopes high but in the end all of them were really just tired. The door opens, and all Lup manages to say is "Good afternoon-," because the two of them are suddenly unconscious. 

Taako wishes, he _really_ wishes, that their home plane's elves were immune to sleep spells like the ones he had heard about in so many other cycles. But as it is a few high-level _Sleep_ spells are enough to put them down, and when they wake up again a minute later they're in a cage just barely big enough for the both of them. 

That's fine. They've been in cages before, plenty of times, and they're still here. Still kicking. Though, to be fair, it's harder to knock the two of them from life than it is most people. Behind him, Lup taps the end of her wand.

"Light," she says, but nothing happens. Taako stretches his hands out through the bars, tries to summon to him any kind of arcane energy, but the most he gets is the same kind of soul-deep sting that he used to when he was trying to cast spells too high a level for him.

"It's gotta be an _Antimagic Field_ , or something. Centred on this cage, maybe, but not on us." Taako tells her. They're stuck here for an hour then, more probably.

"Very clever," Says a voice in the corner of the room as a lone candle starts to burn, illuminating the face of a halfling woman. "Though you thieves having that much knowledge of magic is par for the course, I suppose."

"Were you just-," Lup laughs. "Were you just _waiting_ in the _dark_ for us to wake up so that you could have that dramatic-ass entrance? Because while I don't approve of the kidnapping thing, that's the shit I can get behind."

"Aren't you scared?" the woman says.

A smile twists at Taako's lips. Lup is always like this when they're in trouble. Acting like it doesn't matter, like she could get herself out anytime, and yet no matter how many times it happens or how self-assuredly Lup tells whoever has captured her that she could burn their city to the ground if they don't let her go, they always seem surprised when she ends up fine and they end up very much not.

They don't talk about all of the times Lup has not been fine.

"Why would we be?" Taako asks. Sure, they're magically out of options right now, but they'll get out alive eventually, even if it's at the beginning of next year. Not that the woman would know that, but he rationalises it for himself anyway, gives himself a reason not to be afraid. 

"Because you and your filthy elf twin stole magic from us, and now you're going to give it back. Both of you still have your ears undamaged, and we don't know what's happened to your tails but the rest of you seems fine." She grins as both of them press their ears flat against their heads. Elven ears, which are so long and thick that they act as another limb to most elves, are incredibly sensitive. Taako and Lup have had their ears removed before, twice exactly, though they've come close more than that, and it's never fun for anyone involved. Normally if things get too bad Lup will just _Hellball_ the room or he'll _Mass Frog_ everyone in sight, but as it is they're trapped.

"We didn't steal shit." Lup says, but there's a shakiness in her voice even as she tries to project ferocity. "And we're not filthy, so I would appreciate if you didn't call us that."

"Elves took magic from the rest of us, and now you have it in your ears, in your blood. You stole magic and we're going to take it back."

Taako reaches for arcana again, instinctively, and a thought occurs to him. "Lup, what if you die in an _Antimagic Field?_ " He asks in elvish, and Lup pales. 

"I don't know, but it's gotta let up at some point. It's a high-level spell, no way do they have enough people to keep it going forever." She responds, also in elvish. "I'll just- it's gotta just banish me, right?"

"Shut up, both of you." The woman snaps. "Sieriea!" She calls up the stairs, and rushing down comes a young human, and Lup knows her perspective on human age is skewed, but if they were an elf they'd still be under 100, still adolescent. "I'm going to show you how to cut the ears off without damaging them-," as she's talking though, she takes down the _Antimagic Field_ and tries to cast _Hold Person_ on them. 

They're level 18. They feel it the second arcane energy flows around them again, and Lup casts _Prismatic Spray_ even as Taako fails his saving throw and is frozen. 

" _ **Fuck that noise**_." Lup says, and it's not the _Dispel Magic_ incantation, but it works anyway and Taako shakes his arms out. He's caught by the young human's shortsword and he yanks back next to his sister. 

The halfling casts _Frostbite_ and Lup laughs, low and cruel. They both feel the spell take hold of them, but they stand. " ** _Dust_**!" Taako shouts, and the woman _D_ _isintegrate_ s, leaving only the human left to swing at him again with their shortsword, and then again. There's a decent slash down his side, and he feels his head start to go faint, but Lup casts _Sunbeam_ , finishing them off nicely.

He laughs as the two of them run up the stairs, and Lup _Meteor Storms_ the few people upstairs while he hits them with _Wall of Ice._ And for a second, it feels just like it always did. The two of them, together, tired of running but doing it anyways, and doing it well. And as the two of them rush out of the house towards the edge of town, riding an excitement that they haven't felt in years, Lup grabs his hand and Taako thinks that maybe, even if they do have to keep running forever, it doesn't have to be so bad.

That was the last good year.


	8. Recounting Events to Thin Air

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Davenport misses Merle.

Davenport is fairly certain he's the only person living on the _Starblaster_ who still knocks before he opens doors, but he'll be damned if that makes him stop doing it.

"Merle?" He says. There's no response. Davenport knows what that means - he's either asleep or already in parley, and since it's midday he has his doubts about the first option. "Merle, I'm coming in." He opens the door to Merle's room- one full of plants and half-finished books, and there's a distinct sense of _loss_ he feels when his eyes scan over the smoky dwarven figure on his bed. 

He walks over anyway, sits down on the floor, and pulls out a deck of playing cards - just the regular ones - removes the jokers, and starts to play solitaire. He starts silently, but he manages to pull all for aces out in a few moves. "This is a good one." He says. "I might get it." He knows that Merle can't hear him. He knows he's talking to nobody. But something about it feels right. Just talking makes him feel just a little better. "Looks like it's going to shape up to be a good year, too. You weren't- you weren't there, but the last couple years haven't been- well, they haven't been great. We thought last year was going to be good, after the year before- that was another year without new food, you know? We got a _Detect Poison_ going and it sure seemed like there was nothing there, but gods- only the twins could eat anything there." He sighs. "We didn't realise until after the human kids started coughing up blood. Took a little longer for me. Scared us good. And after the previous year we didn't have any more safe food left for us left to eat. Barry healed those of us who had been poisoned- he's a paladin, did you know? But it didn't do much in the long run. There were still six of us on the ship, and we didn't have enough food to last one of us the entire cycle."

He shifts a pile to an empty space, moves the seven of hearts to the eight of clubs and the six of spades on top of that. "The twins tried everything. I got Taako to learn to fly the damn ship, finally. He's a natural. Keeps looking for excuses to get me to let him do it, pretends to be disinterested. You know him." The three, four, five of diamonds go onto the stack. "But the food here is good. The twins have stocked the kitchen with at least twenty different kinds of flour, and we have a month's worth of rations now in case something happens. I'll buy more at the end of the year. The human kids eat like it's their last meal, and gods- I'd be lying if I said I didn't, too. But Merle, I-," Davenport swallows hard. "I couldn't do it. I watched the kids- I watched the kids get skinnier- watched them get pale and gaunt and tired- and I couldn't do it. I didn't eat anything, and I didn't tell anyone I wasn't, and I shut myself off and I didn't come back out of my room. Merle, I died, and it hurt. But I kept telling myself- I kept telling myself that I had to do it, that I had to do it for the kids." Three of clubs. He has to move the three of clubs somewhere but he can't move the three of spades and he can't find the two of clubs.

"The kids- the kids are alright. Barry is eating regularly, which is good, but it's not like him. The twins are pulling the most difficult shit I've ever seen done in a kitchen. Lup says she can make a baked Alaska, which she's apparently done once before and Lucy described it as, quote, 'the most bomb-ass ice cream cake ever'. They had an argument about what constitutes an ice cream cake. It's almost nice to see them fight like siblings, about things that don't matter. We had souffles this morning, which- well, you were here this morning- we all were. It's nice, having all of us together for once." He has to shift the suits around from pile to pile in order to stack them up, and he does so with a practised ease.

"I don't know when the hell I got so attached, but gods am I. I think they know, but they haven't said anything. It's almost worse. I wish you stayed. It's always worse when you're gone. It's all more tense, doesn't feel as much like- as much like a place where we all live. It's all just work when you're not here. I wish you stayed, I wish you stayed- just once. I don't care how much you can get out of the Hunger, please, please, please-," 

Eight of diamonds. It's all laid out in front of him. He could stop, knowing he's won, but it's more about the satisfaction of seeing everything piled up. Nines, Tens, Jacks, Queens. He holds his breath, tries to get himself to calm down.

"I miss you." There's a shakiness to his voice. He laughs weakly, throws the king of hearts onto the pile, completing the game. "That's probably the corniest shit I've ever- corniest shit I've ever said, but it's- gods, Pan, Merle- it's the truth, and I'll be damned if being corny makes it any less true."

He hears the sound of a pile of dust hitting the bed behind him and his eyes burn.


	9. Cracking the case: Lucretia a Secret Spy????

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lup finally has enough proof.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My mental health hasn't been great lately on account of quarentine, so its a pretty short one this week, sorry about that. Hopefully it's a good one, and next week's should be full-length.

"So, you're probably wondering why I've gathered you all here today." Lup says, completely seriously. 

The seven of them are standing on the observation deck, looking at the jerry-rigged projector system Lup built in order to show them whatever she wants to tell them. Lucretia can tell by the way Taako looks like he's taking a shit that he's trying very, very hard not to laugh and that probably means this whole ordeal is much less serious than Lup wants them to think it is, something that the rest of the crew also seems to have caught onto. 

"Taako looks like he's about to die, please just do it." Barry says.

Lup clicks onto the first slide in her powerpoint. "Cracking the case: Lucretia a Secret Spy????" proclaim big red letters. 

Taako's on the floor. Taako is on the floor wheezing about how stupid this is.

"Oh no, my secrets," Lucretia says loudly.

 _"No."_ Davenport says, getting up and leaving the room.

Lup still looks dead serious. "Captain Davenport! At least allow me to present the evidence before coming to your conclusion."

Davenport stays at the door, but doesn't come any farther into the room.

Lup flips to the next slide. It's full of ridiculously blurry pictures of Lucretia talking into her stone of farspeech. "Communicating with a SHADOW GOVERNMENT??" it reads.

If Taako could be more on the floor, he would be.

"Lucretia is always using her stone." Lup says conspiratorially. "Could it be that she is, in secret, communicating with a _shadow government_?" 

"Where?!" Barry screeches. "If there's a shadow government, where is it?!"

Lup looks like she has a response prepared, but Merle, who seemed confused at the first slide but seems to have caught on, speaks first. "Well, in the shadows, obviously! If they were in the light that would just be a regular government!"

Magnus is laughing so hard he's crying. Lup though, looks _more_ serious if anything. 

"Exactly, investigator Highchurch." She flips to the next slide, which shows pictures of Lucretia sitting in the shade of a large tree and of her shadow. "I present you with these as further proof of involvement. What do you have to say for yourself, _Lucretia_?" 

Lucretia scampers over to the nearest shadow, which results in her being scrunched up next to a cabinet in the corner and pulls her stone from a pocket in her robes. "I've been- I've been found out, we have to-," She laughs. "We have to cancel _the mission._ "

Davenport snickers.

"Lucy! I thought we were friends!" Magnus shouts. 

"That brings me to my next point." Lup says, flipping through her slides again. This one just reads "HER WHOLEASS JOB!!!!!" Lup walks over and picks up one of Lucretia's journals off a side table. "Exhibit A. Lucretia is always recording things about us in these journals. We never suspected her because what better place to hide them than in plain sight? No place. There is no place better to hide them." She's cracking a little, but she quickly regains herself. "Clearly, she chose to apply for the job of chronicler so that she would have an excuse to _spy._ "

Taako, who had regained himself mostly, is on the floor again. "A spy!" He shrieks. "Our Leafcretia Greens, a spy!" 

"You know why she has two copies of all of her journals?" Lup says.

"She gives one to the shadow government?" Barry asks incredulously. 

_"She gives one to the shadow government_!" Lup shouts. 

"What second copy? You don't know about those." Lucretia says. "They're with the shadow government now. They never existed. _I_ never existed,"

"Lucretia's erasing our memories of her, oh no!" Magnus says. 

"Who is?" Merle asks.

"Me and my crew of five," Davenport says, giving up any air of restraint. "Wonder who takes the notes around here. I've never seen any records."

"None of you have seen records in your lives!" Lucretia yells. 

"I've never seen any records in my life!" Barry echoes. 

"All of my slides are blank now!" Lup says, finally cracking. "I have no idea what this presentation was about!" She laughs, flipping through more slides that clearly have text on them. 

That year is a good one. 


	10. The Dark and All the Things In It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something's up with Barry.

The seven of them can’t read each other’s minds, but after thirteen years of living in the same place together, Merle figures they’re pretty close. Barry, however, does not seem to have caught onto this, based on the fact that he keeps trying to pretend that he’s just fine and that there’s nothing wrong with him. There’s no physical damage done, but their resident bond scientist and engineer has spent most of the cycle thus far shut in the lab.

He’s been even quieter than usual. Barry is pretty quiet already- not in terms of volume but in amount of words spoken- though Lucretia is the quietest of any of them on all fronts. Barry, though, is a social person. he enjoys interaction, he's just bad at initiating and keeping it going. He'll usually try to keep going until he burns himself out, but lately he’s shut down anyone who tries to converse with him within the first five minutes and disappeared out of the room.

So when Merle finds him, sitting in a chair on the deck and staring blankly into space, he figures that’s what Barry's going to do, but he attempts to strike up a conversation anyway.

"Something bothering you, buddy?" He asks, squinting. The lights on the deck are turned up almost ridiculously high, and it's a sharp contrast to the outside of this plane, which seems to be stuck in a state of perpetual moonless nighttime. 

Barry jumps, spilling the cup of coffee he has in his hands down his front side. "Ah- shit, hot!" He shouts, cursing again and using _Prestidigitation_ to clean himself up. "I'm fine. I'm good. I'm just a little tired, that's all. Did you- did you want something?"

"Just to make sure that you were okay- everyone else 's already in their- ah, quarters."

"Yeah, uh. I figured I'd, I'd stay up and keep watch." Barry isn't looking at Merle as he speaks. He's looking through him out into the darkness outside, eyes flicking periodically to intently gaze into this plane. 

"Why don't you head to bed- I'll take over for you." Merle says, patting Barry's knee and climbing up onto the couch next to him. 

Barry's hands clench around the heavy fabric of his robe, and he pulls it tighter around himself. "I'm good," He says. "If you wanted to stay that would be cool- with me, uh, but, I wouldn't want, uh, uh, I wouldn't want to keep you up." Barry's still staring through the window, but he has to make a more conscious effort so as not to be looking at Merle now. 

"What out there is so interesting-" Merle asks. "The trees are nice, sure- but there's nothing happening."

"You can see the trees?" Barry says. 

"Not very well, but I can. Can't you?" Merle leans up on the arm of the couch and rests his head in his hands.

"No, it's all dark for me. I can't see anything." 

"Well. We can fix that." Merle shoves himself off of the couch and begins to walk to one of the exits. "You coming?" He calls, and Barry follows reluctantly.

The two of them step outside. The air is warm and humid. Merle casts light and starts to walk into the forest the _Starblaster_ is parked next to. Barry hangs back. 

"Gods, Merle- where are we going?" He asks.

"I want to show you something." Merle says. "I found it yesterday. Figured I'd bring out pots later today to move them properly."

"It's a plant." Barry says. It's not a question. His tone is inscrutable.

"Yes, yes, it's a plant." Merle says. "Now come on!"

Barry starts to reluctantly follow through the dark, jumping at any small sound until finally the two of them enter into a tiny shaded clearing. Around their feet are hundreds of minuscule flowers, petals a shiny black.

Merle leans down and cups one of them in his hands. A minute passes, and slowly the petals begin to glow a soft orange. Merle moves to the next flower a few feet away and Barry watches that first orange flower as the ones around it begin to glow a shade of lavender. The one Merle is holding now is green, and the ones that surround it are a very light pink.

Merle moves to the next flower, watching the last two as the flowers around turn blue and red. When he's finished with that flower, he stops and watches. And he laughs, crouched in the beds of flowers. He turns to look at Barry, eyes bright and young and sparkling, and Barry smiles.

He sits down and watches as the flowers cycle through colors, and Merle walks over to sit next to him. The two of them watch as even the flowers further into the forest, more spread out but no less pretty, begin to light up as well. They shine like distant stars and Barry pushes his glasses up onto the top of his head and lets the blur of the colours overtake his brain trying to sort things out.

"Gods, Merle, this is- this is amazing," He says, and it's not excitement in his voice. He feels content, sitting in this bed of flowers in the middle of a plane that is not his own.

"Not to get all preachy on ya, but you can thank Pan for this." Merle says, elbowing him gently.

"Praise be," Barry says, leaning his back up against a nearby tree. He yawns. "Praise be."

His eyes shut, and they don't open again for a long while.


	11. Snow and Ice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Well this one's gonna suck ass." Taako says as soon as they have the heating on and everyone's looking out the window at fields and fields of snow.

They've been walking for what feels like forever, and Taako is cold and his feet are wet and he does not appreciate it. The snow here is dense enough for Davenport to walk on top of it next to him, which is pretty cool until the snow isn't dense enough anymore and Davenport has to walk through snow that is very nearly as high as he is tall. The number of slots the two of them have burned casting _Flame Burst_ , _Wall of Flame,_ and other fire-related spells is through the roof. Taako had gotten frustrated and burnt his seventh-level slot casting _Fire Storm,_ which had cleared the 100 feet in front of them but left him suitably exhausted.

Davenport shouldn't be going on this mission with him. It should be Lup or Magnus. It should be the two of them together, no Taako at all - they're the ' _Blaster_ 's primary people for any sort of exploration. The evocationist and the fighter, strong and insightful and trustworthy (or, in Lup's case, trustworthy-looking). Not the two of them who are out now. Davenport is a good leader and a clever fighter, but he's too proud to stop when he has his mind set on something. That's why it's them out looking for the Light.

Davenport had been killed early last cycle, driven through with an iron greatsword in a world where the gods were not responding and the plane of magic seemed to be missing entirely. He seemed more frustrated by it than anything else. He'd been more serious this year, more like he had been at the beginning of their twenty-eight-year long journey and less of the cocky trailblazer they'd come to realise their good captain was. 

They push through the snow, squinting against the sun reflecting off of the glassy white fields that stretch out farther than either of them would be able to walk in their lifetimes, a thought that Taako voices to his companion. 

"I don't know," Davenport says. "You've still got- three, four hundred years left?"

"Plus however much longer this lasts." Taako amends.

"The cycles? If we're taking into account the cycles and the Hunger you've got less than a year." He sighs. "It's so cold, though, we'll freeze to death before then. Sweet Fantasy Jesus."

Taako takes his eyes off of scanning the horizon for the Light to look over at Davenport. His hands are stuffed into his armpits, his tail too thickly wrapped in fabric to twist around his legs but as close to his body as possible, his ears and face a bright red. "Are you alright?" Taako asks when another hour has passed and Davenport starts faltering and falling behind even without as much snow to wade through as Taako has.

"Of cours-s-se," He says after a moment. "I'm f-fine."

Taako frowns and glances at the way the sun has started to get low in the sky. "It's getting late- we had better make camp before it gets really cold."

"We c-could get f-f-farther, we'll be ffine." Taako stops and Davenport takes a few steps forward. "C-c-c-come on."

"No offense, compadre, but you're not looking too hot," Taako says, putting a hand on Davenport's shoulder and preparing to cast _Investiture of_ _Flame_. Fire licks up his arms and he focuses it into the surrounding area for the next ten minutes, leaving the two of them with a decently dry circle of stone. 

They set up camp, and neither of them talk much. It's a comfortable sort of silence, not incredibly close, but companionable. Davenport works slower than usual, something that Taako notices vaguely but does not put any real mental energy into. Both of them are cold and wet and tired, and Taako is glad that he doesn't have to cook anything and can just open the containers of food that they packed this morning. The tent is small, but it just makes sharing body heat easier. Davenport calls the _Starblaster_ to confirm that they're both fine, and they fall asleep easily and quickly. 

When Taako wakes up Davenport is on top of him, and there's still two more hours until they're supposed to start walking. The sky is dark, and the temperature is the kind of dry freezing that makes his knuckles bleed. Luckily he's had long enough of a rest that he's recovered his spell slots, but he just casts _Create Bonfire_ outside and waits for Davenport. The sun here is a bright purple, and the sunrise is such a beautiful array of colours it leaves Taako breathless, and he sits and stares for a long time.

When Davenport comes out, he's already shivering violently. He sits next to Taako's conjured fire, too close for it to be really safe. Gnomes aren't made for the cold- neither are elves, but Taako has more general mass. His breaths come slow, but every one seems take the world from him, and Taako looks at him shaking, his skin too pale, flakes of snow in his hair.

"We h-have to k-k-k-keep going for anth'r day." Davenport says. "We have f-f-food f-for one more d-day. Or- w-w-w-wait-t."

"Fuck. Okay, Dav, we're going to head back to the ship." Taako tells him firmly.

"N', we hav'a g-get the Light." Davenport says. "The w-w-world-d-d'll d-die."

"You'll die if we don't get you back to the ship." Taako says, beginning to pack up the tent. Davenport doesn't say anything, electing to stay close to the bonfire, recasting it when the spell ends. Taako casts _Locate_ _Creature_ and names his sister, walking in the direction the spell points him. "Come on."

"The Light-," Davenport murmurs. 

"You're not fucking thinking right, and if I let you die, you'll kill me next cycle." He says, looking back at Davenport but still walking backwards towards the _Starblaster._ He follows, slowly, faltering frequently, practically leaning against Taako. It's slow going, and they've only made it part of the way back when they have to stop because the sun has set. Davenport's stopped shivering. He's been completely silent, though, which is worrying.

"You know what would be great?" Taako says, stuffing food into his mouth. "Big snow lizards that we could ride. Warm snow lizards. Damn, that'd be great." He's been talking, talking about anything, trying to shove the panic he's feeling beneath a heap of words.

Davenport nods vacantly, and he closes his eyes. They're eating inside the tent instead of outside around another bonfire, and he falls asleep against the wall of the tent, pressed into the cold side against the snow no matter how Taako protests. He stays up as long as he can, but he shuts his eyes eventually and drifts into unconsciousness. Taako wakes up again.

Davenport does not.


	12. One Moment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A conversation between friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy pride everybody! Have this chapter.

Lucretia doesn't mean any offense when she steps into the negotiation room wearing a baby blue dress under her robe, but the crew doesn't see her for nearly month afterwards, and when a member of the king's guard returns her to the ship she's been hurt. She's bruised and dirty, her left arm broken in three different places, and both of her eyes are missing. Lup leads her to the couch with a gentleness that the rest of her family rarely see from her, and for the first few days, Lucretia doesn't speak. She cries, jumping at small sounds and coughing up blood that she still needs to expel from her lungs even if Merle has healed all of her wounds. All of them are gentle with her. Lup feeds her, and Lucretia devours any food that's put in front of her. They have the light, but none of them are entirely sure if it's worth the state it's left Lucretia in. They still have another eight months. 

One day, Magnus is sitting cross-legged on the deck, carving a duck as they fly through the country. This plane is beautiful, and it makes it more painful for Lucretia not to be able to see all of it. She walks in quietly, turning her head left and right as though she expects to blink and see something. She's still not used to it, they can tell. 

"Hey, Lucy," He says, standing. 

"Hey," Lucretia says. "I can't find my hairbrush. I thought I left it on my nightstand, but it's not there. Can you-," She gestures in the direction of her bedroom. 

"Yeah, of course!" Magnus says, walking into her bedroom and patting her on the shoulder as he passes her. Her hairbrush is on the floor, kicked under her bed by accident. "Here," He says, handing it to her. "Do you want to sit with me?" 

"Why not?" Lucretia shrugs, and he takes her hand. The two of them sit down together, and Lucretia brushes out her hair, leaned up against Magnus as he continues to carve his duck. He's quieter now than he was before they began their half-century of running, but he's still not _quiet._

"Hey, do you think Cap'n'port would let me get one of those really small dogs they have here?" He says. "They're just so tiny, teenty-tiny little babies- gods, Luce, I want _seven_."

Lucretia laughs. "Absolutely not."

"Seven! One for each of us! I was in town a couple days ago, and I saw this sleek black boy, except for his head was so soft and fluffy- his name was Tolstoy, and if you had seen him you would have bought him on the spot, and it wouldn't matter what Cap'n'port said, we would have a ship pet. The shop owner said that he was named after the 'greatest author of all time'. I've been looking for some of his books for you next cycle."

"Tolstoy?" Lucretia says. "Where's my journal, I should write that down- could you do that for me?"

"Yeah!" Magnus says, grabbing a journal left on a table on the deck. "I can write about the dogs, if you want."

She smiles brightly. "Sure, why not? Tell me about it."

She hears the scratch of a pen on paper, and Magnus says, "Well, it started when I told Barry that we should check out the local shops. The two of us headed out a couple days ago to get lunch, and I saw this pet shop. They're called partchies, the little dogs, and they eat mice. I can have Barry draw you one tomorrow- sometime this week- but they're just these small dogs!" He's grinning like the gods came down and made the world for him, Lucretia can hear it in his voice. There's admirability in his fighting skill, in his quick thinking, but these moments, it is agreed, are what make Magnus _Magnus_. He's just so delighted to have somebody to listen to him.

Magnus keeps talking and Lucretia leans against him. She can tell they're sitting facing the window- that's something she would know even if they really only had the _Starblaster_ for two months, and she's had much longer than that. 

"What does it look like outside?" Lucretia asks.

The question seems to take Magnus by surprise, and he tenses beneath her for a minute, then relaxes. "It's real pretty. The trees here are pink."

"All of them? I saw some, but there were a few that seemed more purple than pink. How much do their shades vary?"

"Oh, I think I've seen some that are definitely purple. Then some of them are red, and we went over a field the other day that was super light pink, so it kind of looked white if you weren't paying attention."

Lucretia doesn't hear Lup come in, but Magnus greets her when she sits down next to Lucretia, and Lup says, "Tell her about the shitty village food, and Taako's hat!"

"I was talking about outside," Magnus says. 

"And I already know about the shitty village food. You've been screaming about it all week. What happened to Taako's hat?"

"It caught on fire!" Magnus says. Lucretia can hear him scratching into her journals when Lup starts to talk again.

"It's a fucking miracle it didn't happen before. All of my clothes are fireproof for this _exact_ reason. But he got a new one and it's the stupidest wizard bullshit I've ever seen."

"What? Why?"

"It's tacky purple, which I get a lot of Taako's clothes are tacky purple, but it's still a shitty colour no matter how much he wears it. It's got stars all over it, and star beads hanging from the brim- which is fucking gigantic by the way, holy shit, and I _want_ to burn the thing."

"He said that if you muticlassed then he would be supreme ' _Blaster_ wizard, and-,"

"Having two fighter levels isn't real multiclassing! Real multiclassing makes people have no idea what class you are or assume that you're every class- like we do with Barry! It is not fair that he gets to lean into the wizard aesthetic so hard and I get no say in how much of a disaster he gets to be around us, specifically me. Because he's a disaster."

Lucretia laughs.

Magnus does end up finding those Tolstoys, and Lucretia devours them as soon as she can possibly do so. She doesn't shut up about them for the next three cycles.


	13. The "Romantic" In Necromantic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lup and Barry love each other, so, so much.

Lup's sprawled out on the deck, basking in the sun that filters through the glass windows. This plane is a calm one, without much sentient life. They still have yet to find the light, but she and Barry believe they've figured out a new way to track it down, and if they're correct, it seems to be working. The day is warm, almost too warm, but not humid, and they've been at it so hard for so long it's always heaven when they get lazy days.

Barry walks in, wearing his typical blue jeans- an older pair, maybe even one of his original ones - and a more casual t-shirt. He walks to Lup, standing over her. "What are you doing on the floor?" He asks.

She looks up at him for a minute. Fuck, he's so pretty. She doesn't have the energy to give a real, proper answer, so she just sighs. "I'm just- I'm just _vibin_ , today. And I happen to be on the floor."

"If life takes you to the floor you will go to the floor?"

"Exactly. Listen, babe." She sits up, leaning against the thick glass of the window. It's nicely warm, and she slouches into it, patting the floor next to her. "Get on the floor with me." Barry sits next to her, awkwardly straight. "Relax. Life took you to the floor, just hang out on the floor."

Barry laughs, and he does indeed relax. "I like your hair." He says dreamily. He brings his knees up to his chest, crossing his arms over them and resting his head on his arms. 

Lup reaches up to her head, her hair done in a messy bun she's pretty sure is just a result of her not taking it out yesterday. "You're a fucking liar, Barry J. Bluejeans. My hair is shit today."

"Your hair is always good. That's, oh, let me check the data-," He pulls a notepad out of one of his pockets and flips through it randomly. "yeah, that's a scientifically proven fact."

Lup smiles. He's her godsdamned dumbass denim scientist, and she's never letting him go. "hey, kiss me?"

"Oh, oh- okay." He pushes his glasses up onto the top of his head. Lup tilts her head and when Barry leans in her nose brushes against his cheek. He smells like the grilled cheese sandwiches she made for lunch, and she thinks she probably does too. One of Lup's hands is on his neck, and the other is in one of his. Barry's other hand hangs in space for a second, like he's not entirely sure what to do with it, and he moves it to her face, just barely touching her.

Lup moves back to breathe, giving him a lopsided smile as she pulls away just slightly. Barry takes back the arm that she doesn't have ahold of and presses fingers into his neck. "My, uh, heart's beating real fast," He says. Lup laughs, and it's as though the whole world takes on a fuzzy quality, like all of Barry's emotions have been wrapped in cotton blankets.

"I'm just that hot." She says. Barry gives a sincere nod, and Lup moves forward to kiss him again. It's soft. Even against the smooth metal of the floor and the quality of the glass that is almost burning, there is such a softness in Lup, a comfortable interior that is inherently evident in these moments where existence allows it, where forty years together have joined them into something almost like a singular person.

Where there is so much _love_ it _hurts._

They part again. Lup can't stop smiling, and neither can Barry. "You're wonderful." Barry says.

"Oh, I know. You know what else I know?" 

"What?"

" _You're_ wonderful."

"You're more wonderful."

"If you say so, I guess. Be wrong, okay,"

Barry laughs, hearty and bright, then sighs. "I should go check on those rock samples we got yesterday."

"No you shouldn't! You should stay here, with _me._ "

"Mmm, tempting." He says, shifting to get up.

She pulls him closer to her. "The rock samples aren't important, this world's livable. They can wait. I am impatient. It's a break day. Take a break."

"Impatient? What for?"

"Just always. It's my constant state."

"Well then, those were some very convincing arguments. I suppose I had better stay."

"You had better."

They're leaned into each other, and it's a sleepy kind of fantastic.

"Isn't it nice on the floor?" Lup says.

"Anything that I do with you is always nice," Barry says, not looking at Lup but instead at a very interesting spot of nothing on the floor.

"With lines like that you're lucky you're so pretty." Lup says, grinning at the way that's what makes him turn a bright scarlet as he combs fingers through his unkempt hair. 

"I- I, uh- I-,"

"Shh. It's bedtime now." She leans farther into him, wrapping her arms around his neck and resting her head on one of his shoulders.

"It's the middle of the day?"

She closes her eyes and pushes him over. "Any time is bedtime if you try hard enough."

He laughs, and the two of them absolutely screw their sleep schedules. 


	14. The Sweet Sweet Warfare of Friendship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crew has a water gun fight.

"Fuck, oh gods, _stop it_!" Lucretia giggles, running halfway up a nearby hill only to find that it's way too steep and tripping back down. Merle throws another water balloon at her, and she tries to spray one of her guns back at him, but it splutters, and she's out of water. She makes a break for one of the metal buckets set up around the field. Lucky for her, Merle has enough of a sense of fair play to only chuck one or two more balloons after her, and her sturdy boots dig up the earth as she slides over to the bucket and pushes the sleeves of her sweater up for what feels like the seventh time. When she can't get it to stay shoved up her arms, she gives up and shucks the thing entirely.

"Hell yeah! Strip!" Lup yells from across the field, where she and Taako are wrestling for one of the bigger water guns. Taako looks over at Lucretia (she's still wearing an IPRE tacky red tank top), and Lup pins him to the ground, yanking the gun out of his hands roughly and running off. Lucretia laughs, but is abruptly cut off by a _fucking torrent_ of water hits her in the back like a sack of bricks, thoroughly knocking the wind out of her, but she's experienced enough in battle that she can still turn around almost instantly. 

"Bluejeans! Bluejeans, fucking hell!" She shouts after Barry, who apparently opted for dropping his gun and running, which, in Lucretia's humble opinion, was a mistake. She dunks the entire thing in the water and watches the bubbles come up, and _holy shit_ , this thing's tank is massive. She pulls it back out, empties it out onto the grass, then throws it as far from one of the refueling buckets as her thin writer's arms will allow. She's not about to waste her time on something that isn't her style, and she picks her two smaller ones back up from the ground.

She goes after Magnus next, who seems to just have been collecting as many guns as possible, and doesn't seem to have any idea how he's supposed to hold them all. He does manage to get a handle on one of them, though, and when Lucretia starts shooting at him, he shoots right back. She's not super wet yet (except for her back, _thanks, Barold_ ), but this fight with Magnus isn't one she's about to win without allies. He'll run out of water in one gun and just pick another one up off of the ground.

Barry seems pretty distracted with Merle and Davenport seeming to have teamed up on him, and Lucretia didn't pick up those rogue levels to _not_ move quietly, so it's not hard to sneak up on him. She shoots at the side of his head, and he shouts. Lucretia bolts for Lup, who's currently filling her guns back up, and kicks the bucket over as she runs to create chaos. She laughs as Lup splashes the small remainder of the water in the bucket up at her, soaking her shoes but nothing else. Lucretia sprays her a few times, just for good measure, and is back to one of the buckets as far away from their pyromancer as she can get. She's not out of water yet, but it doesn't hurt to be prepared.

Taako's crouched by it, and Lucretia hopes they can form an unspoken Refiller's Truce **™,** a hope so viciously dashed against the rocks when his ears flick in her direction and he springs up, spraying her with two guns at the same time, and she screeches. He runs after her, tripping on a loose patch of dirt and Taako takes advantage of her lying prone. "Fool! Idiot! Fell right into my trap!" He yells, laughing. She stays on the ground but shoots back at him. She gets him in the eye and he uses one hand to rub at it and the other to flip her off playfully, tucking his guns into his armpits. 

Lucretia scrambles to her feet, making another dash towards a refill station, and Taako retreats back to his trap bucket. Lucretia watches as he fails a pathetically easy perception check and crouches back down. It comes as a cold shock to him when Merle dumps the entire bucket on top of his head, completely soaking him from toe to tip. Strands of long hair stick to his face, and his mouth falls open as Merle cackles. Lup catches this and practically screams with laughter, and Taako shakes his head a little like he can't believe what's just happened. 

There's a moment of pause as Lucretia watches Taako try to collect himself, and she misses it when Davenport appears next to her and she gets a decent hit to the side. It's cold and sharp, but when he goes to hit her again, he's out of water. The gun is almost as big as he is so she assumes that he's out. She grins, spraying him down and running backwards, and he pulls a water pistol out of one of his accursed ridiculously large captain's pockets. She's got the high ground, but he's proficient in ranged weapons. He chases her until he really is out, and she sits on the ground at the edge of the clearing a minute, exhausted.

It's a minute before Taako, still dripping taps her on the shoulder. "You alright?" He asks, an uncharacteristic show of kindness brought on by years of running from a world-ending eldritch horror. 

"Fine," She pants. "Just tired,"

She catches the stream of water he sprays at her face. "Good, don't be the person who dies playing with water guns." He says, and he leans against her for just a second before rising to his feet again and running into the tussle that's just broken out, with the other six breaking into an approximation of teams. "I'm against fucking _Merle!_ " Taako screams at them. Lucretia giggles and sighs. 

It's not the first carefree year, but it's not by any means the last, either.


	15. Arguable Cooking Skills

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone who can cook well is gone, leaving Davenport and Barry in the kitchen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was SUPPOSED to be a joke chapter about Davenport and Barry not being able to cook but then this happened, oops

Davenport stares up at the cupboards, which are mounted a good twenty inches above his head. "This is bullshit." He says, turning to look at Barry, who is somehow _already_ covered in flour. Their denim man nods solemnly. The two of them have been subsisting on instant noodles and peanut butter sandwiches for the past week, but they're out of those now. This world, though not openly hostile so far, hasn't been exactly welcoming, and the other four of them still left after Merle went to parley with the Hunger are all out managing negotiations for the Light. 

"You could use _Mage Hand._ " Barry says. 

"I _know_ I could use _Mage Hand_." Davenport says, climbing up on the counter. "But it's a matter of principle. This entire ship was _supposed_ to be designed to be accommodating to small folk. But no, all of the cupboards need to be high up and all of the buttons need to be far away. _Gods._ " 

"Hey, at least they're dead now." Barry comments with a halfhearted laugh. It's easier to laugh than anything else. It's been almost forty years, and the knowledge that everyone from their plane - with the exception of each other - was gone had taken on a strange quality with time. It was like each of them had a long slit cut in their arms, bandaged with years and the edges healed with time, but impossible to forget about for too long. 

"We don't have any onions. Do you think we could just use garlic?" Davenport says, pulling rice and salt out of the cupboards and dropping them on the counter. 

"Probably," Barry shrugs. "No tomato paste, either."

"I mean, what is tomato paste really? It's just mashed tomatoes, right? We can mash tomatoes. " Davenport says. He sounds distinctly uncertain.

"I could _try_ and call the twins, but the communicator's still on the fritz."

" _Gods,_ _no._ It's too close to the maneuvering drive, and I spent all of yesterday trying to fix that." He grimaces. "And if tomato paste isn't mashed tomatoes we'll never hear the end of it." Barry starts slicing tomatoes, and Davenport dumps a cup of rice into a pot and puts it on the stove. He leans up against the counter and sighs deeply. "Do you ever wonder if we're doing the right thing?" 

"What?" Barry turns around, cutting one of his fingers when he makes another absentminded slice. 

"Oh, gods, nevermind. It's not important." Davenport says. "Hand me-," He swallows, hard. "Hand me the peppers, I'll cut those."

"Of course it's important." Barry says, and Davenport breaks eye contact and stares out through the door. "Hey, what you feel is important. What's bothering you?"

"It really isn't anything." His voice is shallow, and he sounds like he's having difficulty breathing. "Just give the pepp- _oh, fuck, shit,"_ He says suddenly, yanking the rice off of the stove and stuffing it into the sink. 

"What? What's wrong?" Barry asks, his voice almost drowned out by the hiss of cold water running into the hot pot.

"I forgot- I forgot the-," Davenport laughs. "I forgot the water! Gods, I fucking forgot the water!" He giggles, high-pitched, almost hysterical, and he leans over the sink, head propped in his hands as he watches the pot overflow. "I forgot the water, Barry! How much fucking stupider does it get!?"

Barry reaches for him but stops just short of making contact. "Hey, hey, Captain, it's fine. We'll just restart it." Davenport is silent. Barry measures out the rice and water. "We're nearly out." He says, his voice shaking a little as he attempts normalcy. "We'll have to tell the twins to get- no, they don't-, uh, they don't have rice on this plane, do they?" He keeps his eyes down on his task.

"They," Davenport sniffles. He's still standing next to the sink, and he takes in a deep breath, shuddering like a kicked window. "They don't, not on this plane, no."

Barry shuts off the stove. "We'll eat, uh, bread, uh, and butter, or, uh, uh, something, I, I don't, I don't _know."_ He wraps a tentative hand around Davenport's shoulders. Davenport doesn't resist when Barry tries to lead him onto the deck. The sun on this plane is setting, and it's a truly splendid sight, full of bright red and dark purple, but there's something about it that's just too much, and Barry hits the button that's meant to block out outside entirely, but only works halfway because of all of the damage they took landing this cycle.

And then Barry's just standing in the entrance to the deck, his hands on Davenport's shoulders, and he doesn't know what he's supposed to do next. Davenport inhales sharply and holds his breath. Barry doesn't know what to do, oh, gods, he doesn't know what to do, he's not prepared for shit like this. He doesn't fully realise when his hands clench because he's too busy being focused on how many thoughts are spiraling through his head, but Davenport's quick to get away. He claws at one of Barry's hands, leaving a stinging scratch that makes both of them jerk away from the other. 

Barry stumbles backwards a few feet and when he's back up again, Davenport is breathing heavily, propped up against the couch and staring blankly into empty space. Barry rubs his hand off on his shirt absentmindedly, and he balls the fabric up. He's shaking. 

There is a long moment of tense silence. 

Davenport walks back to his quarters. Barry falls asleep in the doorway that night. They spend the time until the twins come back eating buttered toast and trying not to talk to each other.


	16. Stealth Mission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their goal is not to get caught, mostly. They end up not doing that.

Davenport and Lucretia were back at the ship. This was a five-person mission, they'd decided. They knew that the Light of Creation was somewhere in this castle, but not any idea where, so they had come up with a plan to split up to look for it and make it out without anyone really noticing them. 

It hadn't quite worked.

Barry, Lup, and Magnus are standing in a great hall, paying audience to the king of this particular section of land this particular cycle. He's an elf, which makes him seem even younger than he likely is. He looks bored, which can be either very good or very bad, but never seems to rest in the neutral side of things. He rolls his eyes and sits up sharply.

"Kill them," He says, and suddenly half a dozen guards are on top of them. 

Magnus takes a swing at what looks like their captain, her armor deflecting most of the hit, and he has to turn as another guard attacks him, though he doesn't get through Magnus's defenses, and Lup casts _Cone of Cold._ The three of them fail their saves, but luckily so does everyone else, and Lup is glad for the fighter levels that have padded her hit points as it freezes four of the guards solid.

She doesn't get long to appreciate it, though, as a shortsword is driven through a gap in her armour into her ribs and she gasps, on her knees for a second until Barry pulls her up, quickly casting _Cure Wounds_. "You alright?" He asks, and she nods as behind him a mage casts _Fire Bolt_ at Magnus and the guard captain swiftly drives her dagger into one of his exposed shoulders. Their security officer has to take a moment to pull it out and misses another hit.

Lup doesn't, pulling her own broadsword from its sheath and going after the guard who attacked her before. She lands, distracting them from the attack they were about to make on Magnus, and Barry casts _Thunderwave._ The guard is thrown against the wall with a crack, and doesn't get back up. Lup fails that save too, but she's flung towards Magnus, who has managed to stay on his feet and helps her up, getting hit in the back by another _Fire Bolt._ Lup can feel the heat of it as he's completely enveloped in flames, and both of them stagger back. 

Barry turns to look at them and catches another one of the guard captain's daggers in his side. Magnus throws a few of his own, missing the first two but landing the third. Lup casts _Magic Missile_ at the mage, dragging more magic through her body than she knows she should, and the darts come out burning with blue fire, but Lup can feel a stinging under her skin.

Barry brings an elbow up and brings it into the guard captain's head, and she collapses to the ground. He twists to grin at his companions, and misses the emergence of another five guards into the room. Barry gets a hit to one of his arms, and he jerks backwards. The mage casts _Lightning Bolt,_ and it nearly hits Magnus and Lup at full force, but they both manage to get out of the way in time. One of the guards takes a second swing at Barry, and he yanks backward.

Another of the guards stabs awkwardly at another of their kind, clearly unpracticed with a sword, but the other's surprise makes it a hit anyway. "Whoops, kemosabe, my bad," He says, his voice high and lilting and instantly recognisable. He digs the sword deeper into their neck. 

"Taako!" Lup laughs, clutching at an injured side, and Taako pushes the visor of his borrowed armour up, grinning like he's been gifted the sun. "Did you get it?" 

"Merle has it." Taako says, jabbing a thumb at a similarly clad dwarf, and Lup rushes to retrieve it from him as Magnus deals a blow to another guard, knocking them to the ground.

" _Give me the orb_." The boy king says, standing suddenly. His voice shakes a little, but his words are laced with magic.

Magnus blinks furiously, curling into himself, and Barry and Taako both stand up too straight. A guard attempts to take advantage of Magnus's distraction, but he's a trained fighter and deflects their blow easily.

Merle puts the Light into Lup's hands. "Make sure these idiots don't follow us," Lup says, gesturing to the king and his guards, and he nods, patting her arm. She casts _Teleport,_ and she is gone.

Merle grabs Taako's arm, casting _Dispel Evil and Good_.

"Shit," The flip wizard murmurs, glancing up at Barry, who has begun gathering arcane energy from the surrounding air, and Magnus, who has sunk to the ground, a hand to his head. A guard slices at him, adding another cut to the not insignificant damage he's already taken. That manages to snap him back into lucidity, and he knocks the guard away from him, standing.

The mage casts _Cone of Cold_ , this time around Merle, Taako, and one of the two remaining guards. The guard solidifies, and Merle shudders. Taako flicks a wrist at the king, casting _Disintegrate,_ and it works like the sixth level spell it is, reducing him to ash. Magnus swings at the final guard, managing to cleave one of his arms clean off before he falls to the ground. 

Merle moves to cast _Dispel Evil and Good_ on Barry as well, and he slowly regains his grip on reality, releasing his grip on the arcane energy around him. The mage is backed up against a wall, and when he makes eye contact with Taako, he spits the incantation for _Meteor_ _Swarm_. 

There's a moment of panic where Magnus grabs Barry and presses both of them against the wall, where Merle tries and fails to estimate the amount of time he has to cast _Sanctuary_. Where Taako freezes. In the end, even that isn't enough to leave any of them alive in the end. 

Barry, skeletal and transcendent, stands above the bodies of his friends and turns his attention to the mage, crouched in the corner of this burning room. And he burns too.


	17. Lup Eats a Cardboard Box Whole, or: RIP Lucretia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lup helps Lucretia move out of her room.

Lup fucking swears, if she has to help anyone else move in her life, she's going to die. She's going to drop dead on the spot so that she doesn't have to do it. If anyone gets that stupid little buzz about them that means they're about to shove their shit around, she's going to head down to Chicago herself, see you next year.

It's the 48th cycle, and it was only last year that she had to help everyone move all of their stuff into the conservatory, let alone the time crunch of getting it back onto the ship at the end. Lup has about seventy sheets of music stuffed into her bedroom, complimented by books on musical theory itself - all of which were frankly ridiculously expensive. Lup never thought she'd be going to college again after her old one sent her into space and then promptly got eaten by an eldrich horror from beyond the stars, but she supposes that's just the way it is sometimes. After their performance last year she and Barry had wanted to share a room, and Taako asserted that he couldn't get out of there fast enough. 

He'd moved into a room with Magnus, essentially switching places with Barry. Lucretia was left with her own room, and Davenport and Merle shared the captain's quarters closer to the front of the _Starblaster._ Which was fine, or it should have been.

Except. 

For decades, Lucretia's room had been, to put it mildly, a clusterfuck. She made two copies of each of her journals, and with her starting a new one every four months for nearly half a century added up to what was basically _a godsdamn lot._ A little over two-hundred and eighty, by Lup's calculations, and the stacks of them reached to Lucretia's ceiling. The rooms were meant to hold two people who did nothing in them but sleep, and the books amounted to about 1.5 people, and all of her paintings and art supplies amounted to .7 people, which was already too much and left absolutely no space for Lucretia herself, who could often be found asleep on the floor at any hour of the day or night, rolled up in her blanket and squeezed into whatever space she could find. 

Which was a problem.

Except.

"I appreciate your concern, I really do, you guys, I am absolutely _fine."_ Lucretia says, opening a jar of paint and dipping one of her fingers in it, only to leave herself with the dilemma of having paint fingers. She wipes it off on her arm and puts the jar in what is sure to be an absurdly heavy box already filled with various other colours. "I don't _need_ a bed."

"Yeah, and Lup and I don't _need_ sleep. Shut the hell up and help." Taako tells her. He casts _Levitate_ on a box of paintbrushes only to have the bottom fall out. "Okay I guess, fuck you too." He tells the box. It's one of those days.

Lucretia's actual bed frame is nowhere to be found and the mattress is propped up against the wall. "I'm fine. I'll just sleep standing up." She leans against it, pushing the bottom half closer to the wall, and it starts to fall on top of her. "Oh. Fuck. Help?"

Taako cackles at her at the same time that Lup comes back into the room. 

"Noo, it's not funny, Taako! Taako!" Lucretia whines, moving one of her arms to try and hold it up better and losing more ground. "Fuck, Why are these so heavy?" She says, more seriously.

"RIP Lucretia." Lup says. "She was a dear friend."

"RIP," Taako echoes. "Crushed beneath a mattress. Tragedy."

"Flat as a poorly made pancake." 

"Sometimes I'll go to talk to her, and," he devolves into fake sobs. "She's just not there!"

Lup pulls him close to her as tears actually start to run down her cheeks - she's trying too hard to contain her laughter. "There, there, dear brother. We can only soldier on through this dark night."

"I hate you." Lucretia says.

"Rip," Taako says, looking her dead in the eyes and going to collect the paintbrushes he spilled on the other side of the room. Lucretia shifts around so that she can give him the finger while Lup walks over to help her straighten the mattress out. 

Barry comes in to see the two of them holding it up and Taako actually picking something up for a change. "Is everything okay?" He asks, shaking his arms out before picking up another box of paints. 

"Yeah, babe, we're fine. It's just that Lucretia's dead now. Rip."

"Uh, okay? Sorry Lucy, RIP." He says. "But the engine room's actually pretty nice, you know? I'll be more space than you have in here, and less, uh, journals. RIP again- I guess? I'm, uh, going now." He carries the box out.

"Lup come get your man, he's too fucking good for you," Taako says, _Mending_ the box and walking to the door. "You could say any dumb shit and he'd be like 'haha yeah' which is good for you because all you ever say is dumb shit." He follows after Barry.

"At least I _have_ a man, bitch!" She calls after him, but he's already gone. "Bitch." She tells Lucretia. 

She laughs, and gestures to the mattress. "So. Here is the problem. I need to get this to the engine room but it's very large so doesn't fit through the door." 

Lup nods, leaning against the wall. A minute goes by. "Unless,"

"Unless?"

"We _could_ , and this is just a suggestion - we could break the wall."

Another minute goes by. 

"We could _what_?" Lucretia says.

"Magnus!" Lup shouts. "Come help me break the wall!"

"The wall is metal!" 

"Give me a box and you shall have your reward!" Lup says. She's wrapped in dramaticism like it's a fine cloak.

"Lup? Lup, hey, Lup? What the fuck."

"I'm gonna break your wall. You're welcome." Lup says. "But give me a box. I'll eat it for power."

Magnus knocks on the doorframe. "Hey, whaddaya want?"

"Hand me that box." Lup says, pointing. Magnus hands her the empty box. She casts _Reduce_ on it and pops it into her mouth. Her face contorts into a look of disgust as she chews for what feels like forever before she swallows it. "I did it for the goof but that was terrible. Like I was gonna do it and act like it was good but I _hated_ that."

Lucretia buries her face in her hands. "I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die here. Could've cast _Reduce_ on the _mattress._ Fuck."

"RI-fucking-P Luce." Lup says automatically. "Hey, Magnus, can you get this matress out of here? Lucretia has weak writer arms and I've suffered a permanent downgrade to all of my stats for eating that cardboard box."

"RIP Lucy." Magnus says, picking up the mattress.


	18. The Silence of a Kitchen at Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magnus and Taako have a talk.

Some days, Taako doesn't sleep. It's not so much that he actively avoids it so much as that he just _doesn't_ do it. He'll lose track of time and by the time he realises that's what's been done, it's already four AM and he figures he might as well stay up the rest of the night too. There's a time between where everyone goes to sleep and everyone wakes up again where the _Starblaster_ is always quiet and peaceful. Lucretia does it sometimes, too. She'll be journaling and just won't fall asleep. They don't tend to interact with each other, though. Lucretia stays on the deck while he hangs out in the kitchen. More often than not, by the time he hits five AM he'll start making breakfast. It's a good arrangement - so long as he doesn't draw attention to it, nobody bothers him.

He's flipping through a cookbook he picked up a couple cycles back, trying to convert measurements into something he understands and figure out which ingredients can be substituted and which he'll never see again. Cooking is Taako's element, and it's almost mindless work, simple calculations and common knowledge combined with checking the cabinets to see what they have, what elements are present through many of the cycles.

He's been at it for about an hour when Magnus walks in. He looks uncannily awake for the hour of the night, and when the two of them make eye contact, Taako raises an eyebrow questioningly. Magnus sighs and leans against the doorway. Taako jumps up onto the counter, but when he pats the spot next to him Magnus shakes his head.

"Do we have coffee or anything this cycle?" He asks. 

"'Fraid not, homie. We have those killer cookies that Barry made with so much sugar in them it's basically coffee." Taako snickers, pulling the container from a cabinet only to find they're mostly dust. "Never mind I guess. Fuck you too, cookies. Unless you want these crumbs?" Magnus shakes his head again, and Taako returns the box to its original spot. "I'll put some on that cake I'm making for the captain's birthday next week. Oh, _s_ _hit_ , I need to make sure we have the stuff for that." He begins to hunt around the kitchen for it, sorting through a couple dozen cookbooks stacked up on the counter. When he finds it he starts darting around the kitchen, hunting for what he'll need. 

Magnus stays silent, and Taako, who's stacked several ingredients on the counter, sighs. "What're you doing- because watching me isn't exactly helpful. Can you find those berries we collected earlier, or, you know, leave?" 

"Aren't they in the fridge?" Magnus says. His voice is gruffer than usual, more guarded.

"Wha- that's the very first place I looked, you hulking idiot. They might still be with Lucretia's stuff- could you go?"

Magus leaves, and Taako dispels an illusion in one of the cupboards, pulling out a couple of cupcakes from the batch he made earlier in the night. He'd meant for them to be eaten for breakfast, because breakfast cupcakes taste good, but he'd also made a dozen of them, and he didn't actually need that many. He recasts it - it's just _Minor Illusion_ , and he'll have to keep it up when Lup comes rooting around the kitchen in the morning, but it'll be worth it for surprise cupcakes.

When Magnus comes back in, Taako holds one out to him, patting the counter next to where he's sitting for the second time. "Cupcake for your thoughts?" He asks. 

"No, thanks." Magnus says, putting the retrieved berries down on the counter and turning to go. And Taako is tempted to leave it there, to say he tried and give it up, because he doesn't really want to have to talk about feelings and shit, especially not in the middle of the night when he had thought he was going to be alone for a few more hours at least.

But this is Magnus. Magnus is his space brother, not as close as Lup but about as close as anyone who isn't his actual sister can get. "Mags, I fucking swear, I'll _Hold Person_ you into staying here and talking about whatever the fuck has you up and bothering me at zero-dark-thirty."

"Well, I, uh, forgot something outside, and then, uh, you know how we changed the code to open the door after we got raided last cycle?"

Taako crows with laughter, shaking and wheezing. "You forgot how to open the fucking door? You dumbass! We've been using that code for weeks!"

"There's always been someone else there!"

Taako starts laughing even harder at that. "Okay, okay, okay, okay. Okay. What is it? Why can't you wait until morning?"

"Uh, my bed."

" _What,"_

"I don't know! It's late, I can't come up with a good lie!"

"Okay then, why are you actually sneaking out? You got a hot date?"

"No, I- you know Theal?"

"Yeah, you were there like forever. I thought you said you hated it there?"

"I _said_ I hated the Duke of Theal. The people there are oppressed, and I can't- what's the point of saving them from the Hunger if they just keep being miserable even after it's over? Besides, I've got my name in the records, and they respect me."

"So you want to head back there? It's a three-day journey without the ' _Blaster_. And besides, the point of getting the Light isn't to stop this world from getting eaten. It's to stop the Hunger from getting stronger. Like, you do you or whatever, but I'm not helping you past opening the door."

"Fine. I just need to be there by the end of next week when shit really starts to happen."

Taako slides off the counter again and pats Magnus on the back. "You're doing a good thing. Just- don't die out there, okay? I need you to do my manual labour for me."

"Right. Because you don't care about me as a _person_."

"Absolutely not."

Magnus scoops Taako into a tight hug, and though he will never admit it, Taako hugs back. 


	19. Surpassing Limitations to Save a Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucretia is gone.
> 
> Barry brings her back.
> 
> AKA: Barry does necromancy until he DIES WHAT THE FUCK

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short chapter this week, i should be back in full force next week

"Damnit!" Magnus shouts, and Barry is pretty sure that if the object he was holding weren't Lucretia's corpse, he would have just thrown it. "Damnit."

It had just been the three of them left. The only people who lived in this world were humans, and they'd killed their non-human party members way too fast to suggest that they might be even remotely contestable.

It had been seventeen years since the beginning of their escape, and this was the first where they'd been without their captain for more than a month. The necromancy in this planar system was hyper-advanced, which Barry had seen as a kind of silver lining to the nastiness that was losing more than half of their crew until Lucretia had been kidnapped and was now dead because of an experiment that had been run on her. 

The problem, of course, was that the only human member of their party who knew how to fly the _Starblaster_ had been Lucretia, and if they didn't have anyone who could fly the _Starblaster_ , then they couldn't get out of this planar system, and then the mission would be over. That and that Lucretia just didn't deserve to die. 

They bring her body back to the outside of the _Starblaster,_ and Magnus sets her gently on the ground. 

"Barry, and I hate to say this, but can you-," Magnus gestures to Lucretia.

"I wish, but I don't have enough cleric levels."

"You're a cleric?"

"I'm a lot of things. " Barry crouches down by Lucretia's body. " I could make her into a ghoul, but that's about it. She wouldn't be herself then, though."

"What do we do? Maybe- no." Magnus runs his hands through his hair. "I'm going to go make some food. We can figure something out in the morning." 

Barry stands suddenly. "Can you bring her body into the ship? I don't want anything to happen to it." He says. "And don't- don't wake me up in the morning. I'm going to try something, and I need to rest for as long as possible. It might- it might not- if it doesn't work, it'll just be you alone, and I would wait for longer into the year for that, but the closer it is to the death of the person, the easier it is to revive or resurrect them."

Magnus looks scared, and Barry can't really blame him, but he nods and gently picks up Lucretia's body.

The two of them eat sandwiches and talk about the events of the past few years, but it's strained, uncomfortable, and Barry is glad when the time comes to excuse himself to bed. 

He wakes up early into the afternoon the next day with a note from Magnus that says that he's gone out to get more food. 

Lucretia is surprisingly light when he lifts her cold body onto the table. "Alright, Lucy." He says, taking one of her hands. "Let's give this a go."

Barry drags energy through his body. He feels stiff and cold, and there's such an ice in his blood he starts to shiver. He burns spell slot after spell slot, pulls as much arcane energy as he can reach through himself into Lucretia. The edges of his vision blur, and he can feel the creep of magical exhaustion. His mind melts into a fine mush, and it's all he can do to keep up his concentration.

He feels his hands start to go numb as thin lines of magic start to dig their way though his skin, the sickly neon green of the necrotic arcana worming its way up through the backs of his hands and arms. He makes a pained noise, and clouds of energy pour from his mouth and billow around him. The air becomes ice cold, stinging every inch of his exposed skin.

Lucretia's eyes flick suddenly open. Barry tries to close himself off from the magic that surrounds him, but he's stripped raw, over channeled, so he simply falls to the floor. He hears Lucretia's distant voice, feels one of her hands wrap his arm, red hot and burning. He breathes magic, lets it flow in and out of him. He sees the pearly white of the ceiling, and then he doesn't see anything anymore until the deck of the next cycle.


	20. The Underground Laboratory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lup and Merle find the remains of people long gone.

The fifth time Merle stops to look at a plant that day, Lup sighs and rolls her eyes, kicking some of the earth beneath her feet and digging up a rock, which she kicks around for a few minutes before sighing again, louder.

"Hush, hush, I'm almost done," Merle says, finishing up a sketch of a flower the same blood-red colour as Lup's uniform. Lucretia will ask him about it and refine it later, but all things considered, Merle's gotten very good at these sketches through the seemingly neverending cycles. When finally he snaps his notebook closed and begins to walk again, Lup is almost ready to go on without him.

They're only walking for a few minutes before Merle stops again. Lup casts _Fire Bolt,_ and the cluster of vines that encircle the tree he was looking at go up in a burst of flame before quickly disappearing into the gigantic leafy branches. 

"The hell was that for?" Merle says, accusatory. He casts _Create Water_ a couple times and dumps it over the tree and the surrounding area.

"I want to get out of this godsforsaken shithole, and you aren't exactly expediting the process." Lup snaps. She keeps walking into the thick of the forest. The plants themselves don't seem particularly dangerous, and they haven't come across many critters, but the area is densely packed. "Besides, isn't you drawing plants like, uh, I don't know- pinups? I don't want to be here for that."

"It's research! I _care_ about all the flora and shit! It's not my fault you can't seem to appreciate the beauty of nature. I'll bet if I found something we could eat you would change your tune."

"You know what, old man? Maybe I would. But you _haven't,_ and there's no point in hypotheticals."

"You love hypotheticals!"  
"Yeah, when they're, uh, what's the word? Oh, _fun_."

They walk for a few more hours, letting one of this world's suns dip below the horizon, and chatting amicably. Lup kicks a rock and watches idly as it bounces down the hill, until, without any warning, it bounces back at her with ten times the force she kicked it with, sending it sailing over her head until it lands somewhere in the brush. 

"The hell was that?" Merle says, practically shouting. Lup picks another rock from the ground and chucks it as hard as she can in the same direction. It's flung back at her with so much speed that when it hits a tree there's an earsplitting crack and the place where the bark split is clearly visible. Merle casts _Detect Magic_ , illuminating a dome about ten feet around with the pale blue glow of Abjuration magic. He claps his hands and glances up at Lup, who gives him a Look. "Be careful now," He says with the most sarcastic illusion of care he can manage. "Your eyes might just roll out of your head."

"Oh no, I'm sorry, it's just there was _no fuckin' way_ to guess that it was a _magical barrier_? When it's clearly _magical_ and, even more clearly, uh, a _barrier,"_ There's a hint of play to her voice but her expression is nothing but a mask of annoyance and clear boredom. "Now for an actually useful spell- _Get the Fuck Outta Here,_ " Lup says. Over the years she's gotten better and better at improvising incantations instead of memorising set ones. It's ended them up in some hot water on occasions when she's accidentally created an entirely new spell that isn't exactly helpful in the moment, but by the way the barrier in front of them dissolves, it's clear this is a _Dispel Magic._

What's revealed is- unexpected, for sure. Where there looked to be a wall of flora, there is instead an old metal staircase leading into the ground what seems impossibly deep. Lup's immediately down the stairs, a _Fire Bolt_ snaking its way up her arm for light. It's Merle's turn to roll his eyes as he trudges down after her. "Don't run your hand along the railing!" He calls after her as she starts to go quicker, impatient to get to the bottom. "I'm not healing you if you get fantasy tetanus!"

Once the two of them get to the end of the spiraling staircase, Merle digs around in his bag for a torch, which Lup lights with the remainder of her cantrip. As the fire casts long shadows across the walls, the decimated remains of a laboratory make themselves known. Old tables thick with rust are lined with glassware and containers. Lup screws the top off a container of clear liquid and sticks her finger in, then immediately yanks it back out as her skin begins to crack and split. She luckily manages to avoid the impulse to stick in in her mouth to try and lessen the pain. Decades of working in the lab with Barry have mostly shoved that habit out of her system. She watches the cracks in her finger start to spread down to her palm before she calls for Merle, who had begun to scan through a couple of sheets of notes.

"What did you do this time?" He says.

"I put my finger in, uh, something. Like a scientist would." She holds her hand out to him, trying not to let pain show on her face as thin lines snake their way through her wrist and begin to work though her arm, picking up speed. Merle taps her palm and it quickly disappears. A few vines wrap their way around her arm, and she shucks them onto the floor. 

"A 'scientist', huh? Not the word I would use-," Merle says.

"Oh, hush up, ol-," She's cut off by the creaking of a door from the opposite end of the room. She walks over and pulls it all the way open with a horrid shrieking sound. "Oh, _shit._ " She stands in a small room- she'd be hard-pressed to lie down all the way in it, but inside is the skeletal remains of a rotted body. 

"What is it?" Merle asks.

"Well let's just say my man here won't be heading to any dances soon. Skeleton."

"What, because he doesn't have the-," they both say "Guts," at the same time, but Merle does it with a sort of terrible glee while Lup sounds much closer to _acutely_ annoyed.

Lup takes one of her preserved fingers from a pocket in her robe- she keeps them for the specific purpose of sticking in weird stuff, but sometimes it's about the thrill of the unknown and curiousity wins over logic. When she tosses it into a puddle of clear liquid pooled at the skeleton's feet, everything but the bone turns quickly to ash. "Damn. So probably not drinkable then."

Merle laughs, gives her a gentle shove. "Let's get outta here, kiddo. This place gives me the creeps, and we need to make camp."

So they continue on, leaving whoever they may have found as undisturbed as time would have left it until the desolate remains are swallowed in a cloud of inky blackness, and it becomes nothing more than one strange occurrence among many through the century. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No chapter next week because I'll be completely in the middle of nowhere, but there should absolutely be one the week after next! Happy penultimate chapter!


	21. Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crew is a family.

The day is out from this plane. The stars here are like the ones from their homeworld, distant specks that pepper the night sky like glitter. Davenport has a faint memory of an older relative telling him that the stars are the glitter of the gods. In his mind there is an obscure picture of their face, but their name is lost on him. There are so many- too many- people who they have forgotten. 

Sometimes they talk about it, how Magnus had aunts and uncles who he rarely saw and has no recolection of, or how personal affairs at the Institute seemed all-emcompassing at the time but completely worthless now that any real memories of other people involved have grown foggy with age. 

Sometimes they talk about how many years have passed. They are nearing the end of their fifth decade. It is a terrible thought that their humans would be dead, or at the very best close by now. Unavoidable, always lurking in the shadows of their minds, but terrible nonetheless. Merle would be three hundred, with hardly another fifty years left in him. Davenport himself would be nearing his fourth century, but the  _ twins _ , with their elven lifespans would be middle-aged.

Sometimes the thought of it discourages the idea of trying to end the cycles- until one of them dies or the Hunger brushes their ship again, and then the thought is gone from their minds like dirt from a cleaner ad.

Davenport sits on a hill in the darkness and stares up at the sky, a book of this plane’s constalations laid out in front of him. He runs a calloused hand down one of the pages until he stops as his fingers hover over one he thinks he sees- but no, it says it’s only visible at another time of year. Davenport is good at constalations- he always has been, ever since he was a boy- but finding them, knowing what to look for and where takes getting used to. 

The air is cold around him as he flips to a diffrent page. This one details the story behind one of them. It’s a romance- most are- and Davenport takes the time to read it, because he’s nothing if not well-read when it comes to the stars. They were what inspired his affection for exploration so long ago, and he’s no Lucretia, but there’s a shelf in his room full to bursting with just books on stars.

The  _ Starblaster  _ is fifty feet or so behind him, and he can hear faint chatter in the background. They’re nearing the end of the cycle, and all of them still walk the decks, so it is, by all accounts, a good year. A year of work, to be certain- the Light took considerable effort to secure, Lup and Barry have spent most of their days in their lab, and Lucretia and Merle took it upon themselves to create a corkboard of what they know about - as the kids have taken to calling him - John “the Hunger” Spookyman. 

Davenport is startled from his readings by a loud snap from behind him when Merle steps on a stick. Merle chuckles when he jumps, giving him a few firm pats on the shoulder and then a kiss on the cheek. Davenport leans into him when he sits down. 

“Whacha reading?” Merle asks.

“Astronomy book. I, Merle? Gods, Merle, I’ve always loved the stars. That’s the reason- one of them, at least, I joined the IPRE. I wanted to see the stars up close. I don’t remember who, but there was someone I knew who got into the Insitute when I was real little. Said they were studying space. And I got older, and for a while I think people thought I’d forgotten about it. But gods, I could never. The first time I got up there it was heaven, Merle. It was everything I had ever wanted and more. I’d worked towards it for so long that when I finally got it it felt unreal, like I was dreaming and that at any second I’d wake up and realise that I’d never really gotten that far. I had had similar dreams before so many times, but the reality was everything. It was my purpose, and I don’t think that’s changed. And there are other parts to it now- the Light, the kids,  _ you-  _ gods, Merle- but I look up at the stars and I see my whole life laid out in front of me like a tablecloth on the world’s  _ strangest  _ table. Sometimes, though, it’s hard, knowing that the stars from my childhood, and so many of the other stars that I’ve seen are just- gone. I’ll never see them again, no matter how many times the shapes of them appear just behind my eyelids. They’re gone, and I don’t think I’ll ever be over it.”

“And that’s just fine, but try and look at it this way. You’re lucky!”

“Lucky?”

“ _ Lucky!  _ You get to see every star in this whole damn universe!” Merle stands and throws his arms out, gesturing to the wide expanse of swirling light. “Can you think of a single person who has seen as many stars and you have?”

“I mean, you can’t see all the stars from this planet-,”

“But can you count ‘em? There are thousands out there that you  _ can  _ see, and you’ve seen thousands more before those, They’re up there twinkling and we get to watch them. I know a guy who’s seen the stars on some fifty-odd planets now, and I’ll betcha know his name.”

“Is it Davenport?” Davenport has his arms wrapped around Merle’s waist. He’s smiling, a homesick sort of smile that reeks of sorrow. He laughs, and as he does, a tears begin to roll down his face, 

“It is.”

“Ayy!” Lup calls as she runs from the  _ Starblaster  _ towards the two of them. “How’re my favourite geez...ers- Dav, you all good?” She slows as she sees them, her tone of voice switching from jovial to concerned.

‘Gods, yes, yes, I’m fine.” Davenport says, scrubbing at his eyes. 

“I came to get you, we’re done with dinner, but if you guys need some time that’s chill. Puh- _ lease  _ do not fuck on the grass though. I might see you and then I’d have to remove my eyes.”

“Why, what? Why would we fuck on the grass?”

“I’m sorry, Cap, has nobody told you? Your psudeo-husband acts like, super horny all the time! It’s a terrible terrible thing that makes the rest of us want to leave existence and never come back, but it’s the price we all have to pay for Domestic Days ™ ™ ™. I can’t throw Merle off the ship if I want you to make pancakes.”

“You can’t throw Merle off the ship anyway.” Davenport says, and Lup snickers. “I’m serious, Lup.”

“Hmm. Hmmmmm. Hmmmmmmmm.”

“Lup, if you throw Merle off the ship I’m rescinding your already very limited PDA privilages.”

“I was joshin’! I was joshin’, there’s no need to bring out the fuckin’ navy! Jeez, Cap, cut a girl some slack! I couldn’t do it anyway, who would talk to The Human Vaccum? We’d be done for! Gone-zo! Completely obliter-oh, it’s Maggie and Luce. Hey!”

Magnus is trotting up to the two of them, followed closely by Lucretia, who is pulling on what is likely his robe - it swamps her tiny frame.

“Hey!” Magnus booms. “What’s up?”

“Your captain is threatening to kill me in cold blood.” Lup says.

“Oh, normal stuff then,” Lucretia says from her bundle of fabric. “Anyway. Taako sent both of us out because, quote, ‘that no good sister of mine got lost on the way out, maybe only people with fucking brains in their heads can make it thirty feet away’, with the previous implication being that Magnus and I make only one whole brain.” She shrugs. “Dinner’s ready.”

“Sit down and we’ll see if we can get Barry out here too.” Lup laughs, and Magnus plops himself down next to her. 

“I do  _ want  _ to eat dinner though. That is a thing that is happening right now in this moment.” Lucretia says. Magnus gasps.

“Cap’n’port?”

“Yes, Magnus?” Davenport says. He’s smiling, but he sounds incredibly worried.

“Can we eat out here? Please? Please please please?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

“We should do a chant.” Lup says, and Lucretia nods solemnly. 

All three of them begin to chant “eat out here” until Merle joins in, and Lucretia says “Ah, yes, this is the best way to get what we want.”

“ _ Gods,  _ I absolutely despise every one of you, and as soon as I figure out a way to leave you all here I will. But yes, we can eat out here.”

There’s a not inconsiderable amount of whooping and hollering.

“Why are we whooping and hollering?” A recently-arrived Barry asks, wrapping his arms around Lup.

“We’re eating out here!” Lup shouts. 

“We are  _ not! _ ” Calls the tiny sillhouette of Taako from the ship. “I made fucking  _ stew!  _ It is  _ hot!  _ I  _ refuse  _ to carry it out here!”

“Magnus, go help Taako carry the stew.” Merle says. 

“What? Why  _ me _ ?” Magnus whines.

“Because  _ you _ suggested eating outside.”

“Go!” Lup says. “Run!”

“Run!” Lucretia echoes.

“Run!” Lup says again, and Magnus stands and starts to walk backwards as slowly as he can.

“ _ Magnus _ ,” Davenport says, by way of warning, and Magnus turns around and jogs towards the ship at a normal speed.

It’s not twenty minutes before they have their dinner, and they sit looking up at the stars, making up their own constallations.

“Y’know what that looks like?” Taako snickers, the auduous task of carrying his stew forgotten.

“‘Ko, I swear to every god I know if you say a dick they’ll never find your body.” Lup says. She’s less energetic than she was before, well-fed and content as she lies with her head on Barry’s lap.

“No, no, he’s right.” Lucretia says. “I was saying the other day we need more dick constallations. They’re easy to make, you just need-,”

“Gods, you kids are awful.” Says Davenport fondly.

“Love you too Cap’n.” Magnus says, clapping him on the back a little too hard.

“As a serious astronomer, I’m here to tell you all that that group of stars right there in a square? Those are ‘The Dancing Lady’. No, I won’t explain.” Barry jokes.

“I’m another serious astronomer, and I’d like to tell you all about those two stars I like to call ‘The Vampire’ because they remind me of that time a vampire bit me.” Merle says.

Taako rolls his eyes. “That was so much blood. fuckin’ sucked to clean up.” 

“Was cool though.” 

Everyone else disagrees. 

They spend the rest of the night sitting close on the grass, staring up at the sky, talking. They’re a family, even more bright and wonderful than the stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy final chapter! I hope you enjoyed! I honestly can't express how much all of your comments have meant to me, just like, imagine heart emojis all around them and that's how I feel  
> honest to god, thanks to all of you for reading and making it this far, honestly I'm really happy with how this fic turned out  
> <3


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